서울 2020
UNPACKING SEOUL:
CONCERNS OF A SOLUTIONIST
M E T R O P O L I S
A COLLECTIVE
INQUIRY ON
SEOUL
organized by the MSc Governing the Large Metropolis
EDIT TEAM
Alexandra van Milink
Libertad Sobrado
Francesco Palmia
Pauline Le Bozec
Pranav Kuttaiah
Shirene Shomloo
SCIENCES PO URBAN SCHOOL
Pedagogical team
Cristina Reyes-García
Kate Kwak
Pauline Emile-Geay
Sandrine Boisard
Scientific Director
Tommaso Vitale
Executive Direction
Guillermo Martin
Dean
Patrick Le Galès
© Cover page : Une ville à visage humain, Seoul 2020. Libertad Sobrado.
서울 2020
UNPACKING SEOUL:
CONCERNS OF A SOLUTIONIST
M E T R O P O L I S
A COLLECTIVE
INQUIRY ON
SEOUL
organized by the MSc Governing the Large Metropolis
CONTENTS
UNPACKING SEOUL
P. 07
By Francesco Palmia & Pranav Kuttaiah
P. 17
MODERNITY REDUX:
THE SHAPING OF A 21 CENTURY FORM AND
CONSCIOUSNESS
ST
• Detecting “Japanese-ness”: Understanding the colonial roots of
Seoul’s modernity - By Sarah Nouvellon & Yusuf Ashmawi
P. 47
1
P. 18
• Deconstructing “Korean Spirit”: Alienation, ideology and its roots in
the Park Chung Hee Regime - By Coline Rouchié & Jade Lacoume
P. 25
• Republic of Apartments : The History and Implications of Setting a
New Housing Standard in Seoul - By Léonie Yang & Thomas Janvier
P. 30
• Competitiveness as a Branding Strategy: Tracing the History and
Tensions of Seoul’s Urban Governance - By Beifan Li & Mona Menadi
P. 40
GLOBAL AMBITION & LOCAL MEDIATION:
THE GOVERNANCE DICHOTOMY OF AN
EMERGENT WORLD CITY
2
• Governing the consequences of the developmental state
- By Florinda Bartoli
P. 48
• Affordable Housing in Seoul: From a state-sponsored property
market to public rental housing - By Lucie Lescudé-Plaa & Ying Zhang
P. 53
• The Role of chaebols in Seoul’s Urban Planning and Regeneration
- By Azilis Pierrel & Anne-Sophie Tchuisseu
• Seoul’s Participative Urban Governance - By Francesca Bonalda,
Gabriella Costa & Lina Homman Ludiye
P. 58
P. 63
3
P. 72
URBAN CHANGE “SEOUL STYLE”:
THE CONTEMPORARY GOVERNANCE OF THE
BUILT ENVIRONMENT
• Understanding the transformation of a landfill into an ecological
park through the multiple stream analysis framework: the case of
Nanjido Island, Seoul - By Emma Raiga-Clemenceau & Julia Manien
P. 79
• Building a World-Cultural City: Land-Use and Zoning Regulation in
Seoul - By Carrick Reddin & Shaoni Purkait
P. 86
• Making Seoul’s Policies Socially Acceptable: The Case of
Yangcheon Recovery Facility - By Arnaud Cholous & Victor Labaeye
P. 89
• Sustainability in Seoul : Ecological Modernization or Environmental
Participatory Governance, or Both ? - By Juliette Thijs & Achille Macé
P. 95
4
P. 102
P. 105
P. 112
P. 117
• Limits and Challenges in Urban Regeneration: The Case Study of
Sewoon Grounds - By Noémie Guigue & Natasha Sohail
TOWARDS A K-SMART CITY:
THE NEW “KOREAN URBANISM”
• Unpacking the “Smart City”: A Brief Overview of the Questions
Facing Smart City Technology - By Constance Brown & Pauline Dutheil
• Giving Emptiness a S(e)oul: Examining the Framing of the
Technology-Froward Developments in Songdo and the Digital
Media CIty - By Selina Colin & Antoine Fabre
• Knowing, Showing, Growing: Seoul in the Global Market for KnowHows - By Augustin Bauchot & Violette Caubet
2020 AND BEYOND
By Shirene Shomloo & Pauline Le Bozec
P. 124
P. 71
• Acknowledgments
P. 101
© Photo: Us against the world. Seoul 2020. Shirene Shomloo.
7
UNPACKING SEOUL
INTRODUCT I ON
8
UNPACKING SEOUL : CONCERNS OF A SOLUCIONIST METROPOLIS
By Pranav Kuttaiah & Francesco Palmia
The study of contemporary Asian metropolises poses a theoretical challenge to much of the
extant literature in Urban Studies. The emergence of “global cities” discourses (Sassen, 1999)
coupled with the rise of an “Asian focus” within regional and economic geography has begun to
recognise the emergence of Asia’s metropolitan centres within global financial supply chains.
The recent emergence of a ‘southern’ urban theory has equally pushed back, suggesting an
epistemic need to understand historical and contextual specificity, local political economy, and
the use of thick description in building urban theory through the means of the “rooted” case
study. The major East Asian megacities sit on the border of these two discourses, arguably in
need of new vocabularies that capture their specificity as well as generalizability across various
regional and global scales. Such a theoretical exercise is not simply of academic interest, but
of urgent need in terms of robust public policy. Asia will be the nervecentre of much of this
century’s urban agglomeration. Scholars like Davis (2017) estimated that by 2025 Asia would
have eleven urban conurbations of over 20 million inhabitants - putting metropolitan issues in
the continent at the heart of an urban agenda.
A relevant case study in this regard is that of the South Korean capital, Seoul. The fabled
‘Miracle on the Han River’ stands today as a fascinating example of the intersecting features
of global, local, and particularly ‘glocal’ churns in demography, governance, and economic
restructuring. Seoul, with a greater metropolitan area comprising nearly 25 million people, is
home to approximately half of the total South Korean population while the city itself accounts
for approximately half the nation’s GDP. This tenuous demographic and economic relationship,
the overlapping jurisdictions that map across an increasingly dense agglomeration, and the
churns of a larger Korean society in transition are at the core of our collective inquiry into this
fascinating metropolis.
In contextualising the city, a few key dimensions must be acknowledged which tend to steer the
representation of Asian (and particularly East-Asian) cities in the broader theoretical literature. In
particular, Asian urbanisation seems to have undergone a shift in attention regarding the scale
of analysis. A number of scholars moved from a state-centered focus towards a more urbanled focus. Starting from the discourse around the “Asian Tigers”, Asian urban development
has always been described as a success story of state and market synergies, which gave rise
to the term “Korean Style”. After the Asian Financial Crisis, instead, Asian metropolises started
to be recognized for their independent capacity to position themselves as global cities (Roy
and Ong, 2011) and to formulate a characteristic model of Asian urbanism (Cho and Križnik,
2017).
In the particular context of Korea and Seoul, this shift may acquire significance since it
mirrored the reformulation of power relations in the multilevel governance of the Seoul
metropolitan area. As several scholars have argued, the Asian Financial Crisis highlighted
economic inequalities and social polarization driven by the unsustainable developmental state
and Korean conglomerates (chaebols) during the rampant growth of Korea (Cho and Križnik,
2017, Joo, 2019). The lived realities of such emerging socio-economic relations are yet to be
analyzed in detail by formal academic work but have found an avenue on the global stage
through acclaimed Korean art and cinema - such as the Oscar-winning movie Parasite (Bong,
2019). In combination with longer-term processes of democratization and decentralization,
these crises marked a shift in the model of governance of Seoul. It led the Seoul Metropolitan
Government to recognize the growing social needs of the population and to seek alternative
Introduction
9
sources of economic growth. However, the causes of this shift of scale remain understudied,
from understanding the emergence of new ‘advocacy coalitions’ (Sabatier, 1988) on the
ground to linking the process to wider forms of consultant-led policy interest in local actors
(such as proactive mayors) as a means to argue for universalisation of “best practices” and
rallying against federal red-tape (Montero, 2020).
Overall, the report focuses on Seoul and its urban policies. On the one hand, it takes into
consideration the global position that the city holds. On the other hand, it recognizes the
necessity to analyse the local scale to identify a new vocabulary for Asian urbanisation. By
doing this, the volume mobilizes multiple perspectives with a dialogic attitude between urban
domains that are often separately considered. The report seeks to provide a horizontal
understanding of Seoul’s urban policies thanks to an interdisciplinary approach. An institutional
analysis was integrated with an investigation of the policies subsystems looking for the roles of
interest groups and coalitions in the policies framing and implementation. Social interactions
and the built environment have been scrutinized in order to understand the structural conditions
and the exogenous forces affecting urban policies. Methodologically, a collective inquiry was
realised and supported by parallel historical and media analysis, ethnography, spatial analysis,
and direct interviews and interactions with policy experts and local government officials.
Despite the technocratic specializations of a number of our interviewees, the report also seeks
to contextualise the regimes of urban governance with a nuanced understanding of Korean
federal and local politics - linking schemes and programs, state capacities, land acquisitions,
legal and institutional frameworks, and a host of other instruments and planning schema to the
very real ideological leanings of those who wield them.
The report is organized into four main sections, each of which has been broadly summarised
below. This categorisation is based on a combination of methods used by the respective
authors as well as the scale, scope, and theme of the arguments or aspects of the city that
they seek to make propositions about. The volume thus avoids the pitfalls of a methodological
preference towards solely a historical, geographical, or political scale of analysis in order to
unpack contemporary Seoul. The report also follows a temporal trajectory: acknowledging
the historical legacy of the country in shaping contemporary urbanisation (Section 1) and
the evolution of its conflicting vertical multilevel governance and politics (Section 2). It goes
on to challenge and historicize what has been termed the “Korean Style” state-driven model
of development, calling for a local understanding of urban governance and infrastructure
development (Section 3). Despite vertical conflicts and discrepancies, a common ground
between state and local government actions is identified in the framing of developmental
policies and in their ultimate goal to find an alternative source of capitalization in exporting
expertise and know-how (Section 4). The key questions addressed by the authors within the
more global framing of each section are highlighted below:
Modernity Redux: The Shaping of a 21st Century Form and Consciousness
Seoul has the visible air of a city that has risen from the ashes, a metaphor that is used
repeatedly by many of its residents in describing its self image. For contemporary urban
scholarship, the historical method remains an indispensable weapon in the arsenal of scholars
who wish to dissect the meaning and underlying subtext of such stories of scale. Seoul is
an example of the necessity of unpacking the institutional, legal and cultural histories behind
the urban form of the 21st century metropolis, without which its most important lessons may
indeed be lost behind a veneer of contemporary solutionist ‘best practice’ buzzwords. In the
first article, Yusuf Ashmawy and Sarah Nouvellon take us to the early 20th century to examine
the effects of Japanese colonialism in constructing various facets of Korean modernity, and
by extension, Seoul’s urban planning regimes and institutional architecture. They provide us
Unpacking Seoul
10
with insight on how the infrastructural tabula rasa at the end of the colonial period and the
subsequent civil war must be nuanced with modern ‘legible’ categories of state-building that
could precipitate relatively quick advances thereafter.
The modern metropolis of Seoul can hardly be understood in a vacuum of its more contemporary
political history - and in particular the trials and tribulations of transitioning from military rule to
a democracy at the end of the 1980s. Taking a more macro approach to cultural mores and
its effects on urbanisation, Jade Lacoume and Coline Rouchié delve into the historical details
of the Park-Chung Hee regime, nuancing its effect on the construction of urban “middleclassness”, alienation and its spatial fallout in the city of Seoul. This is taken up in even greater
depth by Janvier and Yang, who use the entry point of the city’s overriding visual metaphor
- that of gigantic and ubiquitous highrise buildings - to trace a material, political and cultural
history of the ‘republic of apartments’. The paper provides not simply a history of the changing
political economy of aesthetics, but also a firm material analysis of instrumentation and policy
that enabled the creation of such urban form. Finally to conclude the section, Beifan Li and
Mona Menadi seek to unpack the tenuous relationship between the history of the Korean
state’s branding and urban development strategies in Seoul, with particular emphasis on the
Seoul Olympics of 1988. By contextualising the emerging rifts in priority and the emergence of
strong metropolitan agendas from the 1980s, they set the stage for the next section that looks
at the relationship between nation and city in more detail.
Global Ambition and Local Mediation: The Governance Dichotomy of an Emergent
World City
Contemporary urban debates often oscillate on a key question: whether the rescaling of states
and concomitant planetary urbanization is resulting in the reduced importance of nationstates in processes of highly financialised regional agglomeration (Brenner, 2004), or whether
states continue to be decisive actors not just in their interface with metropolitan governments
(Sellers, 2005) but also in their proactively ‘urban’ strategies of regional development and
free trade in the service of wider strategic and geopolitical goals (Le Galès, 2016) . In this
context, understanding Seoul, its wider metropolitan region, political structure, interactions
and tensions with the Korean state is of immense scholarly significance.
To begin this section, Florinda Bartoli looks to unpack the governance implications of the
Korean Developmental State on Seoul - particularly on the effects of financial instruments and
the creation of fungible real estate assets in the city with an unravelling spatial impact despite
being conceived at the federal level. This is complemented by Lucie Lescudé and Ying Zhang’s
further deconstruction of the shift in relationship of the federal government to the city, from
public investment in housing to the development of model towns in the wider metropolitan
region - part of what some theorists have come to see as ‘zones’ of ‘infrastructure space’
(Easterling, 2015). Azilis Pierrel and Anne-Sophie Tchuisseu add another crucial interlocutor
to the mix, with an analysis of the relationship between the chaebols, Korea’s traditional
family-owned industrial and technological behemoths, the Korean state and the resulting
spatial imprint on the city of Seoul. Rounding off the section with meticulous details and thick
descriptions of a number of Seoul’s ‘participatory governance’ initiatives (and their relationship
with federal involvement and aims), Francesca Bonalda, Gabriella Costa-Ferreira and Lina
Homman Ludïye use the methodology of case studies to illustrate emerging churns in local
governance in contemporary Seoul.
Urban Change “Seoul Style”: the Contemporary Governance of the Built Environment
The third section of this volume analyses the entrepreneurial effort of the Seoul Government
Introduction
11
to lead a new generation of urban developments. The aim of the chapter is to scrutinize
how the Metropolitan Government adjusted its style and instruments to face the aftermath
of the Asian Financial Crisis. The Crisis, indeed, revealed that the state and market driven
urban development was not resilient to economic and socio-political changes (Cho & Križnik,
2017; Shin, 2020). The “republic of apartments” (Gelézeau, 2007), that resulted from the
developmental state housing policies, experienced growing tensions and inequalities due to its
lacking welfare and social urban policies. As it happened in the ‘70s when the developmental
state moved from industrial to property-based development (Joo, 2018), at the beginning of
the millennium the city’s government moved towards a development aware of the need of
social infrastructure (Shin, 2020). The shift was also pushed by a blossoming civil society that
was aware of the limits of liberal developments and started to seek alternative approaches
(Cho & Križnik, 2017). This can in part explain the political success of Mayor Park who won the
elections in 2011 advocating for a “city governed by citizens” (Seoul Metropolitan Government,
2012). In terms of urban projects, the shift can be identified looking at the new emphasis on
participatory approaches and urban regeneration rather than the previous focus on mega and
redevelopment projects. Overall, the section recognizes the identification of an entrepreneurial
and citizen-oriented approach to urban development pushed by coupled processes of
decentralization, liberalization, and democratization. Despite the originality of the Seoul-style
urban governance, the articles identify it as a local implementation of the developmental state
or as a model of governance in line with what Song termed “productive welfarianism” (2009).
The five articles of the section mobilize different theoretical points to analyse strategies
and instruments of the “Seoul-Style” urban governance. The first article by Emma RaigaClemenceau and Julia Manien uses multiple stream analysis to observe how the project of the
transformation of a landfill into the World Cup Park succeeded in intercepting the policy window
to be conceived and implemented. While the project reached the top of the political agenda
only being framed through ecological and social discourses, the idea of the park coincided
with the larger prospect of becoming a world class city and with the willingness to prompt
neighbourhood rehabilitation raising land value. Similarly, in the second article Carrick Reddin
and Shaoni Purkait highlight the gap between grassroots’ vision and the ultimate political goal.
The two authors analyse how the local government has used land-use, zoning regulations
and city branding strategies to encourage investments in real-estate and to transform Seoul
into a world-cultural city while calling for the preservation of historical culture and design. The
third article by Arnaud Cholous and Victor Labaeye uses the concept of social acceptability to
scrutinize the case of the implementation of Yangcheon Recovery Facility. They argue that the
government, owner of the plant, acted by modifying the perception of risk and of environmental
impact thereby increasing the level of trust in the institution without really involving the local
community in the decision-making process.In the fourth article of the section, Mace and
Thijs draw their arguments from concepts taken by ecological political theory applied to
two development projects led by the Seoul local government, the new Magok district and
the Alternative Seun District Plan. The authors observe how the top-down growth-oriented
tradition of the developmental state was both implemented and challenged by discourses
about Ecological Modernization and Sustainable Development. One of the elements of the
Alternative Seun District Plan is the focus of the last article by Noémie Guigue and Natasha
Sohail who investigate the Again Sewoon project, a regeneration plan implemented and
showcased by the local government. Through an analysis of the built environment and of the
decision-making process, the authors mobilize the concept of gentrification challenging the
success of innovative anti-gentrification practices.
Towards a K-smart city the new korean urbanism
The fourth and last section of the book takes a specific angle analysing how technology and
Unpacking Seoul
12
more importantly the discourse around it is used to sell products, namely urban additions,
and urban policies. Thus, the section horizontally re-opens several points already addressed
in the previous sections such as conflicting and competitive practices between state and local
governments and the governance of the built environment. Technologic solutions have been
applied to cope with security, ecological, management issues. On analysing them, it may be
argued that they have been applied to reach similar goals in different ways that reflect different
styles of government. While the State Government framed technology as a panacea for all
urban issues, the Seoul Government has integrated technology in its shift towards the above
mentioned “productive welfarianism” (Song, 2009). This different use of technology in the
implementation of new urban developments to both solve problems and create an attractive
and branded image implies different results in terms of space democratization, and ultimate
result of local benefits and urbanity. Despite conflicting practices, this new type of solutionism
as a branding tool highlights the importance for both levels of government to build attractive
images and to showcase Korea and Seoul’s efficiency and expertise. Looking at the activity of
Korean institutions overseas, it is argued that the State and Local Government joined the effort
to accumulate and capitalize know-how by exporting it.
The first of the three articles of this section by Constance Brown and Pauline Dutheil analyses
the gap between the necessity for technological solutions to address economic and ecological
issues and the rhetoric of the “smart city” used by the State Government to promote the
Songdo international new city. This new “smart” real-estate development used by the State
in competition with the Seoul Metropolitan Government seems to be in line with the past
developmental state reaching a new level of “post-humanism”. Similarly, Selina Colin and
Antoine Fabre scrutinize the level of urbanity and space humanization comparing the Statedriven Songdo new development with a similarly technologically framed project led by the
Seoul metropolitan Government, the Digital Media City. They conclude that in order to sell
a product (as a new urban space is) technological performance standards are not enough.
Instead, using technology to enhance both performances, welfare and leisure services is a key
element to increase attractivity and to precisely target the recipients for differentiated access
to services. The third article by Augustin Bauchot and Violette Caubet takes an alternative
point of view looking at the role of branding and framing tools to capitalize know-how. The
authors mobilize policy transfer theories to understand how the willingness of both levels
of government to showcase Korean and Seoul-style can be a tool to export and sell local
expertise abroad. With this shared goal, state and local governments joined in the creation of
new institutions to sell know-how. The article, moreover, raises a recent concern about the
conflicting position between the government exporting strategy and the growing bottom-up
culture of open and data sharing, identified mainly in the FabLab movement.
Conclusion: Towards New Trajectories of Analysis
One of the evident pitfalls of academic work emerging over the course of the year 2020 is the
sheer impossibility of being able to fully account for the pace of new developments in the midst
of the coronavirus crisis. This report has largely been a collective effort drawing on various
facets of Seoul’s urbanisation experience up to our final day in the city on the 19th of January
2020 - one day before the country’s first reported case of covid-19. Since then a series
of events have occurred that must be acknowledged as vital to contextualising emerging
contours of the city’s governance, but whose effects may be too early to theorise through
methods of academic scrutiny.
First, as numerous reports have noted, the “Korean Model” of dealing with the pandemic
has drawn heavily on mobilisation and coordination capacities between federal and local
authorities (Chung and Soh, 2020). Thus it may be underscored that while competition
Introduction
13
Korea as opposed to various centre-state-local tensions that have emerged in other major
democracies of the world. This in part may be credited to mechanisms of public health
coordination developed in non-crisis times (as an aftermath of dealing with both the SARS
and MERS threats) that enjoy largely bipartisan support.
The second major development of the post-covid landscape in Seoul was the death of its
incumbent and longest serving mayor, Park Won-Soon, by suicide. Much of our report’s
focus on bottom-up sustainability practices in the city trace their origins to the developments
of coalitions mobilised during his tenure. Park was also seen as a potential successor to
the current President, Moon Jae-In, which has led to multiple concerns over the party, city
and federal government’s future. While the mayorship of Seoul is likely to be taken over
as an internal affair of the party, new presidential contenders are emerging such as Lee
Jae-myung, the governor of Seoul’s neighbouring Gyeonggi province who has widely been
praised for his Universal Basic Income inspired policy solutions for the former manufacturing
hub in the aftermath of the pandemic’s first wave. Lee advocates a focus on tackling job
loss from automation, which he believes to be an inevitable result of the post-pandemic
landscape. This development indicates a potential shift in priority within the party, moving
from a human rights and sustainability centred political future (Park) to a more job security
based liberal-centre approach (Lee). Given the Korean Democratic Party’s sweeping return
to power in the National Assembly Elections of April 2015, it would appear that this internal
debate will be key to the future trajectory of the state and the city.
Finally, a notable development has been the effect of federally formulated housing policy
that has had deep city-wide impacts in Seoul, suggesting a new trajectory of state and city
interactions. The policy stemmed from the fact that President Moon Jae-in had inherited
weakened mortgage rules from the previous administration, and therefore wished to slow
buy-to-rent demand. This resulted in the creation of the Housing Lease Protection Act, led
by the finance minister Hong Nam-Ki. The act sealed increases of “jeonse”1 deposits at 5%
as well as allowing tenants to extend standard two-year contracts for another two, unless
landlords themselves move into the property. The Act led to an unprecedented shortage
of jeonse housing nationwide - but particularly in the city of Seoul - as landlords sought to
empty properties ahead of July 2020 implementation. This was inadvertently incentivised, as
landlords hoped to increase deposits for new tenants, expecting not to be able to raise them
again for four years. The issue gained traction in the international press when Hong himself
faced eviction by his landlord as a result of the policy.
In short, therefore, Seoul - like much of the world - is entering an epoch of flux that may
prove to represent a moment of ‘punctuated equilibrium’ (True et. al, 2007) in its larger
governance landscape. Nonetheless, we believe that the issues and themes highlighted
in this report will serve to better understand and document the existing nature of historical
roots, conflicts, tension and resolution mechanisms within which post-pandemic trajectories
will have to negotiate and mediate the future. In this regard, we hope the report serves to
generate wider interest and debate as well as the formulation of new theoretical vocabularies
and methods to situate the fascinating urban transformations of contemporary Seoul.
1
Jeonse is a lump-sum returnable deposit paid in lieu of monthly rent. Landlords invest the deposit and
reap the returns on interest.
Unpacking Seoul
14
REFERENCES
Bong, J. (2019). Parasite. CJ Entertainment.
Brenner, N. (2004). New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cho, I, & Križnik, B. (2017) Community-Based Urban Development. Advances in 21st
Century Human Settlements. Singapore: Springer Singapore.
Chung, D, & Soh, H. (2020, March 23). World Bank: Korea’s response to COVID-19: Early
lessons in tackling the pandemic [Web log post]. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://
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Davis, M. (2017). Planet of slums. London: Verso.
Easterling, K. (2015). Extrastatecraft. Madrid, Spain: Mairea Libros.
Gelézeau, V. (2007). The Republic of Apartments. Views of a French Geographer on South
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Sassen, S. (1991). The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton University Press,
Princeton, New Jersey.
Sellers, J. (2005), Metropolitanization and Political Change (Wiesbaden: Verlag für
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Introduction
15
Song, J. (2009). South Koreans in the Debt Crisis: The Creation of a Neoliberal Welfare
Society / Jesook Song. Asia-Pacific Culture, Politics, and Society. Durham, N.C. LOndon:
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Sabatier (ed.) Theories of the Policy Process, 2nd edn (Cambridge, MA: Westview Press)
Unpacking Seoul
© Photo: The gateway to the nation. Seoul 2020. Libertad Sobrado.
17
1
MODERNITY REDUX
THE SHAPING OF A 21ST CENTURY
FORM AND CONSCIOUSNESS
18
DETECTING “JAPANESE-NESS”: UNDERSTANDING THE COLONIAL ROOTS OF
SEOUL’S MODERNITY
By Sarah Nouvellon & Yusuf Ashmawi
“They never apologized”
As he showed our group around The Seoul Museum of History, the tour guide emphatically
reminded us of the overdue retribution and apology from Japan, for transgressions
committed during their 35-year rule over Korea. Built upon the former site of the 17th
century Gyeonghui Palace which was later dismantled and turned into a Japanese middle
school by the colonial administration, the museum could not of course bypass the Japanese
colonial era in its 600-year display of Seoul’s path towards “modernity”. Nevertheless, labels
such as “The Stolen Capital, Kyongsong (Keijō)”1 or “a symbol of the crumbling Great Han
Empire” seemed to emphasize the desired narrative: the Japanese occupation had forged
a detour from the city’s steady trajectory towards greatness, from the geomantic perfection
of the Hanyang of the Joseon dynasty through to the dazzling success story of the Seoul
known today (Sorensen, 2016, pp. 177-78). If not to say “detour”, the museum’s display
attempts to at least negate claims that Korea’s post-war development has its origins in
Japanese colonial policies and investment2. It cited examples such as “Chogno, Street of
Modernity”, which boasted the first Asian electric street car in 1899, as veritable evidence
of this pre-colonial modernisation. Moreover, the visitor is not shielded from the brutal reality
of the Japanese colonial era. With documented ideological genocide, forced labor, sexual
slavery, and tens of thousands of Korean deaths for the sake of the Japanese empire, any
positive colonial influence a thorny proposition - as it always is in any attempt at defining the
post-colonial3.
Akin to the museum’s curation, Seoulites and scholars of Seoul display understandable
reluctance to tell the story of Seoul’s recent development as one rooted in its colonial prequel.
More so, there is generally little attachment to a “post-colonial” narrative of Seoul. The city’s
remarkable growth and rapid ascendance among major global cities has made it subject
to analyses largely centred around global capital flows, inter-city competition and smart
city variations; the city’s colonial past and concomitant questions of cultural or physical
legacy are discussed only tangentially. Besides the city’s “success” in itself, two other factors
precipitate such absence of “post-coloniality” in accounts of Seoul. The first is more generic
and relates to a post-WWII bias in detailing the political economies of developmental states
- especially in accounts of the East-Asian post-war miracle. This analysis assumes a sort of
tabula rasa - “a new beginning” which obviates the need to find any earlier beginning. The
second factor is more specific to Korea’s war-torn fate after decolonisation. Having brought
utter destruction and poverty to Seoul, the Korean war facilitated a “Rising from the Ashes”4
narrative in official and unofficial accounts of Seoul’s ascendance, thus rendering impertinent
many particularities of the colonial (and pre colonial) era.
That Korea was war-torn and had to overcome extreme conditions in the 50’s and 60’s
“Miracle on the Han” is indisputable. Ultimately, however, the concept of a city “rising from
Upon arriving, the Japanese renamed Seoul to Keijō, the Japanese word for capital city.
There are many examples of literature that has supported these claims - see for example: (Akita & Palmer, 2015), (Henry, 2014); (Lim, 1999); and (Kohli, 1994)
3
Besides its temporal “after-the-colonial” connotation, we take “post-colonial” to mean “an attitude of
critical engagement with colonialism’s after effects” (Radcliffe, 1997, p. 1331).
1
2
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the ashes” inspires scholarly cynicism. It potentially underplays the significance of Korea’s
pre-war early industrialization efforts (Eckert, 2014, p. 253) and diverts attention from a
potentially insightful analysis of Japanese colonial administration of Seoul and the different
structures they erected or destroyed. After all, even a visit to The Seoul Museum of History
takes on new meaning once one is made aware of the colonial attempt to “Japanize” the
historical site on which it stands - and the possible themes of nationalism, sovereignty
and reclamation that could have motivated the choice of locating the museum there. In
this essay we show that the Japanese imperial project in Korea, with its ambition to both
exert colonial dominance as well as display Japan’s modernity, consolidated around the
spatial and architectural restructuring of Seoul. We then use the example of the Land
Readjustment Program to illustrate the persistence of colonial legacy in Seoul’s modern
urban development practices and to allude to the potential insights gained from examining
historical transformations preceding Seoul’s post-war development.
4
A violent and structuring process of assimilation
As the Japanese Empire emerged victorious from the conflict with the Qing Dynasty in the
First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, there was a shift in regional dominance in East Asia. Japan
capitalized on this victory to revive its influence over Korea, imposing a series of obligations
on the country, such as ceding the monopoly of gold to Japan and accepting the Japanese
Dai-chi Bank as its central bank. The protectorate treaty signed in 1905 was ostensibly an
extension of these established economic relations. Yet, this treaty catalyzed the complete
dismantling of the Korean government. Indeed, by 1907, Korean public administration
structures had become subject to Japanese control, the national army was disbanded in
1908, and ultimately the country was indirectly ruled by the Japanese through the ResidentGeneral of Korea. Finally, the Japan-Korea unilateral treaty of 1910 - signed without the
consent of the Korean emperor Sunjong - signalled the formal annexation of the country and
sounded the death knell for independent Korea.
The Japanese colonial governance of Korea was by no means a passive process. Its guiding
principle rested on the idea of assimilation: the introduction of Japanese institutions into
Korea was perceived as the only way to turn the country into a “civilized” one. This policy
rested on the devaluation of the Korean language and history and a systematic eradication
of prominent cultural symbols, which were regularly destroyed, replaced or renamed. It
also motivated the establishment of the Governor-General as the chief administrator of the
Japanese colonial government in Korea and the custodian of this process of “Japanization”
of Korea..
This administration oversaw many structural changes to Korea’s economy and political
structure, many of which reverberate today. For instance, the industrialization efforts initiated
by the Japanese government in Korea - mainly to meet demand for goods in Japan and later
to provide for Japanese soldiers during the war - meant that Korea had a superior industrial
capacity compared to other post-WWI Asian societies. With industrialization processes
fully maturing in the 1930’s, Korea became host to large factories and a new elite class
of large business groups. The Japanese also pioneered a sort of state-driven “planned
capitalism” (Lim, 1999, p.604), with direct involvement by the Japanese government to
support industrial activity. Although mainly large Japanese “zaibatsu” firms, there were also
Korean entrepreneurs who benefited from the Japanese government’s aid programs (Jeong,
2011, p.164). Eventually this would give way to the concentration of economic power with a
This is a common motto of Seoul and South Korea’s post-war development. In the museum, the final
section (1945-2002) was itself entitled “Period of Rapid Growth Seoul, Rising from the Ashes to become
a Metropolis”.
4
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20
few dominant Chaebols (large Korean conglomerates) and the penetrating role of the state,
characteristic of Korea’s political economy for decades later.
This industrialization and economic restructuring process also engendered “a certain
imbalance between urban and rural areas” (Jeong, 2011, p.172), motivating rural migration
to Seoul and other industrial cities. Moreover, the established assimilation policy favored the
migration of Japanese people to Korea; most of them settled in Seoul, the headquarters
of public administration offices and of many of the newly established industrial firms.
Overall, Seoul’s population increased more than four-fold during the 35 years of Japanese
occupation between 1910 and 1945 (Jeong, 2011, p.160). With its population soaring, and
given its status as a main locus for symbolic expression of Japanese imperialism, Seoul
became a site of many urban experiments.
Transforming the colonized city
Urban reconstruction in Seoul started before the annexation, as the Japanese had seized
executive power several years earlier. However, it is after 1913 that the Government
General of Chosen started to announce huge urban plans aiming at ‘improving the city’. The
Government-general was the main and only institution responsible for such “improvements”
and played an important role in the Japanese colonial strategy of urban planning (Kuroishi,
2016, p. 171). The distinguishing characteristic of this urban planning strategy was the
paradigm of modern urban space as a means to exercise and transmit power (Grunow,
2016, p. 500). Indeed, the colonial strategy of improving the built environment was essential
in the elaboration of the relationship between the colonizer and colonized, the former
embodying ideas of progress and civilization which justified the domination of the latter.
Colonial public works were especially centered around street-improvement projects. In
total, the projects entailed widening and beautifying 141 streets in the city - a total length
of around 42 miles. As Tristan R. Grunow outlines in his article Paving Power: Western
Urban Planning and Imperial Space from the Streets of Meiji Tokyo to Colonial Seoul, the
Japanese imported such focus from western planning traditions, then exported them from
Tokyo to their colonies (Grunow, 2016, p. 506). Although ostensibly “productive”, these
street improvements still retain what Carl Schorske characterized as “disruptive a-historical
cultural transformations and rejections of the past” that signalled modernization - and in
this case colonialism (Schorske, 1979, as cited in Grunow, 2016, p.510). They helped
the colonial authority “produce ‘Japanese’ spaces that would project Japanese power by
constructing ‘colonial difference’” (Grunow, 2016,, p. 528).
This holds even more truth when analyzing the systematic destruction of traditional buildings.
For example, the Gyeongbokung Palace, a spiritual landmark for the Korean people, was
demolished and replaced by the Japanese Governor’s House. A group of Japanese-style
buildings were also erected in the city center, including the Town Hall, the Imperial University
and Shinto Chosen shrine (Zhang & Wang, 2018, pp.109-110). Generally, many spatial
and architectural changes brought by the Japanese acted to destroy the revered age-old
Fengshui structure of the city: a brutal rejection of Seoul’s past and humiliation of its colonial
subjects.
Case study : The Land Readjustment Program
When such colonial traces fail to be “anonymously embedded in the urban fabric”, they
evoke an undesirable memory of subjugation and pain and a reminder of a rejected power
hegemony (Grunow, 2016, p.512). As such, the Shinto Chosen shrine, which represented
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Japanese colonizers dramatically staged “before-and-after” photos such as
these of Kwanghwamun street in 1905 (left) and 1930 (right) to popularize urban
improvements in Seoul. around the world.
Source: Grunow, T. (2016). Paving Power: Western Urban Planning and Imperial Space from
the Streets of Meiji Tokyo to Colonial Seoul. Journal Of Urban History, 42(3), 506-556.
Japanese attempts to subdue Korea’s history and interfere with Seoul’s geomantic
configuration, was demolished only months after independence. Similarly, in 1995, on the
50th anniversary of Korea’s independence, Seoul witnessed the symbolic demolition of the
Japanese-built Government-General Building. Interfering with cosmic auspiciousness of
the Royal Place, the Government-General building stood as an inescapable reminder of
colonial transgressions. Its demolition came among President Kim Young Sam’s larger plans
to “clean up the remains” of colonialism under the slogan “constructing history as it is” (Park,
2010, p.85).
Nevertheless, many such “remains” were able to survive the soaring nationalist sentiment in
Seoul following independence by being reinvented as Korean or simply because they lacked
enough “detectable Japaneseness”. For instance, the tram line built by the Japanese, and
crossing the city from its southwestern to its northeastern ends was replaced by the Metro
line 1 in the 70’s, and remains a main lifeline of Seoul’s transport (Zhang & Wang, 2018,
p.109). The Land Readjustment framework is another colonial tool that was incorporated by
post-independence governments as part of a natural and ostensibly “a-historic” process of
Modernity Redux
22
urban development. It has been regarded as a pillar of the Korean “Property State” politics
that undergirded Seoul’s rapid urbanization process in the 60’s and the 70’s, however, its
colonial origins are rarely cited.
The mid-1920’s marked the emergence of a prevailing discourse emanating from the
transnational building of city planning practices across the globe and characterized by
aspirations to pursue a comprehensive and systematic transformation of space, going
beyond what came to be regarded as superficial alterations (Todd, 2014, p.50). Thus Seoul’s
respatialization through urban reforms reinforced Seoul’s integration into the capitalist world
system and the display of Japanese authority over a territory conceived as a constituent of
a unique Japanese empire.
Drawing on the German precedent of land readjustment system, colonial authorities
instituted mechanisms of readjustment of land use for investment-free construction of
public facilities. When delving into the historical conditions for international implementation
of Land Readjustments programs, common circumstantial patterns surface. For instance,
colonized territories - both in Europeans and Japanese colonies - act as auspicious fields
for experimentation with urban land development techniques - techniques which struggle
to bypass stronger property ownership in the mainland metropolises (Lee, 2018, p.211).
The first interpretation and implementation of land readjustment in Korea was done in 1937
and succeeded a series of legislation such as the land ownership reorganization of 1915
with which urban land was usurped and transformed into colonial government property.
These preliminary legislations were coupled with discursive and repressive strategies to
exhort Koreans into ceasing their land (Todd, 2014, p.53). Similarly, the mechanism has
been extensively used across the world, given the growing need for large amounts of land
and the lack of financial resources to acquire it.
In Seoul’s post-war context, the institutional framework of land readjustment remained
effective prior to its progressive evolution in more complexified forms after 1962 - facilitating
the development of large-scale projects and reconstruction. With Japan’s extensive use of
land readjustment in 1945 for the reconstruction of its cities, South Korean reconstruction
after the Korean war was enhanced by land readjustments which has been used in 1968,
for example, in order to develop and finance the mega-project of the Gyeongbu highway.
Therefore, the ambitious economic development seeked by post-colonial strong-state
governments, yet lacking capacity to buy land, made land readjustment the main driver of
modern land and Korean property state development (Yu Min Joo, 2019).
Conclusion
As with the Land Readjustment Program, many of Japan’s traces can still be found in Seoul.
However, such traces fade into the background of a burgeoning global metropolis that can
lay claim to ‘globality’, and hence obscure the significance of its “post-coloniality”. Indeed,
South Korea’s elevated rank within the global power hegemony means Seoul is often exempt
of colonial historiography that characterizes much research on some African or South East
Asian cities. More generally, Japan’s colonial history is often sidelined, with post-colonial
analysis largely limited to remnants of the European imperial project. Although much can
be understood by looking into Seoul’s trajectory since the end of the Korean war, examples
such as the Land Readjustment program point to the importance of scrutinizing Korea’s
colonial history to better understand its present day urban structures and development
patterns.
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REFERENCES
Akita, G., & Palmer, B. (2015). The Japanese colonial legacy in Korea, 1910-1945. Portland:
Merwin Asia.
Dirlik, A. (2005). The End of Colonialism? The Colonial Modern in the Making of Global Modernity.
Boundary 2, 32(1), 1-31. https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-32-1-1
Eckert, C. (2014). Offspring of Empire: The Koch’ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of Korean
Capitalism, 1876-1945. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Grunow, T. (2016). Paving Power: Western Urban Planning and Imperial Space from the
Streets of Meiji Tokyo to Colonial Seoul. Journal Of Urban History, 42(3), 506-556. https://doi.
org/10.1177/0096144216635170
Henry, T. (2005). Sanitizing Empire: Japanese Articulations of Korean Otherness and the
Construction of Early Colonial Seoul, 1905–1919. The Journal Of Asian Studies, 64(3), 639675. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0021911805001531
Henry, T. (2014). Assimilating Seoul: Japanese Rule and the Politics of Public Space in Colonial
Korea, 1910–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press
Jeong, W. (2001). The Urban Development Politics of Seoul as a Colonial City. Journal Of
Urban History, 27(2), 158-177. https://doi.org/10.1177/009614420102700202
Kohli, A. (1994). Where do high growth political economies come from? The Japanese
lineage of Korea’s “developmental state”. World Development, 22(9), 1269-1293. https://doi.
org/10.1016/0305-750x(94)90004-3
Kuroishi, I (2014). Constructing the Colonized Land: Entwined Perspectives of East Asia around
WWII. Volume 0 de Design and the Built Environment. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2014
Lee, H. (2018). The History of Urban Planning in Colonial Seoul, East Asian History and Culture
Review, 27, 208-214
Lim, T. (1999). The Origins of Societal Power in South Korea: Understanding the Physical and
Human Legacies of Japanese Colonialism. Modern Asian Studies, 33(3), 603-633. https://doi.
org/10.1017/s0026749x99003388
Ngin, C. (2004). Postcolonial Urbanism: Southeast Asian Cities and Global Processes. Cities,
21(4), 363-364. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2004.04.006
Park, S. (2010). The Paradox of Postcolonial Korean Nationalism: State-Sponsored Cultural
Policy in South Korea, 1965-Present. The Journal of Korean Studies, 15(1), 67-93.
Radcliffe, S. (1997). Different Heroes: Genealogies of Postcolonial Geographies. Environment
And Planning A: Economy And Space, 29(8), 1331-1333. https://doi.org/10.1068/a291331
Roy, A. (2011). Conclusion: Postcolonial Urbanism: Speed, Hysteria, Mass Dreams. In A. Ong
& A. Roy, Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global (pp. 307-335). WileyBlackwell.
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Schorske, C. (1979). Vienna fin-de-siècle: politics and culture. London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson.
Sin, K. (2004). Colonial modernity in Korea. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center.
Sorensen, C. (2016). “Mokp’o’s tears” : marginality and historical consciousness in contemporary
South Korea. In C. Sorensen & A. Gevurtz Arai, Spaces of possibility : in, between, and beyond
Korea and Japan (pp. 147-196). University of Washington Press.
Watson, J. (2011). Seoul and Singapore as “New Asian Cities”: Literature, Urban Transformation,
and the Concentricity of Power. Positions: Asia Critique, 19(1), 193-215. https://doi.
org/10.1215/10679847-2010-029
Zhang, G., & Wang, L. (2018). Urban planning and development in China and other East Asian
countries. Tongji University Press.
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25
DECONSTRUCTING “KOREAN SPIRIT”: ALIENATION, IDEOLOGY AND ITS
ROOTS IN THE PARK CHUNG HEE REGIME
By Coline Rouchié & Jade Lacoume
Introduction
On the second day of our Study Trip to Seoul, we were guided through the Seoul Museum
of History by a particularly enthusiastic elderly gentleman who had an extremely specific
and interesting point of view on the history of development of his country. On arrival in the
city, it takes very little time indeed to be introduced to its sheer scale: highways, bridges
and massive infrastructure developments dot the landscape incessantly between the airport
and the city-centre. Our guide shared his explanation for South Korea’s fast growth and
urbanization: the fact that Korea lacked natural resources meant that the country had to
efficiently use its human capital, investing a lot in education and fostering a “Korean spirit”.
When pressed further on this coinage, he emphasized that the “Korean spirit” entailed
a certain resilience that pushed the inhabitants of the country to produce a lot of effort
and work very hard for the growth of the country. This spirit, he added, explained why the
urbanization and modernisation of the country could proceed so rapidly. He indeed told
us that he was born in a shanty town, had to wait for hours to access basic health and
sanitation services and that now he had his own apartment with all the services he needed.
His lifetime was therefore representative of the amazing development of Korea; development
seen as ‘progress’ by him. This explanation behind Korea and Seoul’s growth spurred us
through the remainder of the trip as we endeavoured, in subsequent meetings, visits and
interactions to question, analyse, place and examine this historical explanation. This essay
is a reflection on these provocations.
The guide’s testimony spurred us - particularly his example concerning the benefits of
modernization - to think of the concept of ‘alienation’, as defined by P. Coulangeon: “The
concept of alienation, coming from law, where it deals with transfer of property, has been
imported to sociology by Karl Marx to define the condition of workers in a capitalist regime,
separated from the product of their work and deprived of its organisation. It therefore
designates all individual situations of dispossession benefiting outside entities to the loss
of control on aims of his activity. Therefore, alienation deprives a human of his humanity,
assimilating him to an interchangeable machinery deprived of self-control. The posterity
of the concept comes from political and cultural spheres. In the political field, situations
of alienation manifest themselves through the adhesion of individuals to purposes that
go against their interests as a result of an “ideological apparatus”. Ideological alienation
proceeds the following way, at individual and collective scales, through the adoption of a
‘fake consciousness’ that manifests itself within culture, the use of mass media and the
industry of culture and entertainment. In contemporary sociology, the concept of alienation
is implicitly present in theories of symbolic domination and cultural legitimacy”1.
We therefore seek to question the “Korean spirit” through the concept of alienation as applied
to architecture, urban planning and the specific case of evictions in Seoul. First, we further
develop and explain our choice of using the concept of alienation to better understand
Seoul’s history. Secondly, we will study a specific application of alienation observed through
the creation of an urban middle class during the Perk Chung Hee regime, embodied by
architecture, urban planning and eviction examples in Seoul city before concluding.
1
Coulangeon Philippe, « Aliénation », in Paugam Serge (dir.), Les 100 mots de la sociologie, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, coll. « Que Sais-Je ? ».
Modernity Redux
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Historical concerns: ”Korean spirit” and the Concept of Alienation
In the guide’s discourse, the definition of a “Korean spirit” seemed particularly intriguing. It
may be useful to deconstruct momentarily whether a specific “spirit” in such a case may
indeed be applied to an entire population, and to what extent it represents a very particular
historico-political construction? The articulation of the “Korean spirit” perhaps closely
resembles the construction of the “Dunkirk spirit”: the idea that a people share a common
spirit, and a common characteristic of being united and resilient in the face of a larger
challenge. The “Dunkirk spirit” was developed during the Second World War by the British,
after their defeat in Dunkirk in 1940, when the British had to evacuate France via Dunkirk.
In purely historical and military terms, it was undoubtedly a defeat, and yet, an impressive
narrative and imagination was built around this event, describing the British people as a
united people facing difficulties with resilience and strength. This political construction that
began with the British press recounting the event as a success in 1940 is still present today
in the imaginaries as seen in advertisements using the “Dunkirk spirit”, or in the massive
success of the movie Dunkirk (2017, C. Nolan). This may be a relevant entry point to better
understand the “Korean spirit”. It would indeed seem that there has been a historical and
political construction favoring the idea that Koreans are hard workers. The origins of this
construction may also be potentially traceable to historical events: the end of the Korean
war, the split of Korea in two and the dictatorship period that followed: a history that was
politically used to build this “Korean spirit”.
What was this construction aiming at, especially during the dictatorship? In this essay,
we argue that it may have essentially developed as an ideological tool to promote control
over labour and hasten the development of the country, while also making the population,
amenable to principles of the dictatorship. Indeed, if the people believe they have a natural,
innate strength and ability to work hard, they would be likely to follow such a path. This
imaginary, ideological manipulation, is already very linked to the variety of alienation as
defined by Coulangeon as an “ideological alienation proceeds towards, through individual
and collective scales, the adoption of a ‘fake consciousness’ that manifests itself within
culture, the use of mass medias and the industry of culture and entertainment”.
Indeed, this investment in Korea’s human capital was seen through its education system:
starting from the dictatorship, means were dedicated to education and a highly competitive
system was developed. We understood this through the testimonies of several people
during the study trip, who explained to us that school was essential in one’s life and that it
was complemented by extra classes throughout. Competition, to our respondents, seemed
to govern every step of the educational system. Moreover, it is underlined in an OECD report
from 2014 that “the story of Korean education over the past 50 years is one of remarkable
growth and achievement. Korea is one of the top performing countries in the Programme
for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey and among those with the highest
proportion of young people who have completed upper secondary and tertiary education.
Korea is continuously exploring ways to improve its education system and has dramatically
increased government investment in education over the last decade”2.
Applying Alienation to Seoul: Park Chung-Hee and the construction of the ‘middle
class’
The idea of having an entire population fully devoted to its work and to rebuilding a country
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2014), Strong performers and successful
reformers in education : lessons from PISA for Korea, Paris, France : OECD.
2
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was a strongly nationalistic discourse that rang a bell with the concept of alienation, and the
associated phenomenon of “work dispossession”. This results in the loss of consideration of
unity of the self of one who isn’t able to see him or herself in the outcome of their work. The
notion of “false consciousness” as a broader mechanism embedded in cultural and social
life makes sense in a time of ideological control over populations during the dictatorship.
In Marxist theory, the original vision of work is the way for people to ‘realize’ themselves
through the creation made by the fruit of their labor, which is in turn constructive of one’s
identity. In those terms, the work done by the workers during reconstruction times in Korea
is not aiming at constructing their identity as individuals, but a national identity.
The idea that all the efforts must be concentrated to rebuild the country was central in
Korea, especially during the Park Chung Hee dictatorship period (1961-1979). At the time
of the coup, the city of Seoul was one of the poorest of the region and of the world, left out
after a devastating war and the division of the country in two. This was also notwithstanding
the previous humiliation of Japanese colonization. Rebuilding national pride through the
modernization of the country was the ultimate priority of the regime and thus, of the
population as a whole.
To achieve that, the central power spread the representation of the middle class as the
concretization of the modernization of Korea. If the state was dynamic in developing the
economy with national plans, it was also in promoting a specific way of life to accompany
these transformations. The urban middle class man was the embodiment of success, of
social upgrading that followed the economic development of the country. Living a modern
life in cities, working for chaebols (which expanded significantly under the regime), owning
of an apartment: it was the dream that everyone in the country should expect if they worked
hard enough for the nation. These representations and the creation of the “middle class”
promoted by the state was a way to legitimize the regime, which indeed encountered few
workers’ oppositions during this period (Choi, 1997).
Indeed, this middle class was politically docile given that the state gave them a comfortable
position by developing the country. To come back to the concept of alienation, the
dispossession of the work for the profit of the state could reinforce the false consciousness
of Korean workers by promotion through various propaganda channels. On one side, the
middle class living style that all Koreans could attain one day, and on the other the national
pride that would accomplish Korean reconstruction, development and modernization.
This could also hide the questionable redistribution of the money made by this very rapid
industrial development, in a context where few very powerful companies were working very
closely with the state. Besides the hard work required, the idea of economic and political
discipline was a condition to the achievement of the nation’s goal.
This social control was directed at households with the image of a well-organized family
life, relying on a working man and a wife that could manage the household wisely. In 1967,
state officials launched the Women’s Central Council for Savings Life, along with a campaign
encouraging housewives to keep a household account book on a regular basis, in order to
encourage money savings at the household level. This was seconded by representations
on television, a medium that more and more people were able to afford. A ‘family and ritual
code’ was also created in 1969, to regulate the customs (especially in more rural areas), that
were seen as unnecessary for national development and modernization (Yang, 2012). The
state thus extended its presence in all aspects of the people’s personal lives.
This unifying and centralised model that was promoted at the time is very visible today
in the city’s architecture. With standardized huge buildings thirty floors high and similarlooking apartments rising up everywhere in Seoul, the uniformization processes and
Modernity Redux
28
the development of the middle class is ubiquitous. The middle classes were in turn also
surrounded by middle classes with similar living styles. To be the owner of an apartment is a
real success in life, which is another argument that could support the success of the state.
During the Park Chung Hee era, massive buildings were indeed constructed to overcome
the housing shortage that Seoul knew at the time.
This process was, however, often realised very violently for the poor. Between the end of
the 1950s and the 1980s, most of the squatter settlements were evicted in Seoul, with
plans aiming at building up to 40,000 housing units for the year of 1966 for instance. The
city remains marked by the forced evictions that occurred across long periods of time. In
the late 80s, it was in fact pointed out by the Habitat International Coalition as one of the
most brutal and inhuman evictions in the world (Kim, 2010). Thousands of squatters were
evicted and displaced for development projects. The Olympic games of 1988 provided
an opportunity for the metropolitan government to remove the remaining areas that were
considered as slums or squatter areas, and aggravated evictions issues. Finally in the 1990s,
a Join Redevelopment Project method was created, that gave the right to apartments before
construction to people that were going to be evicted, which slightly improved the situation.
Conclusion
The concept of alienation - especially ideological alienation - helped us better understand
many aspects of our study trip to Seoul. Though this concept has to be critically and carefully
used - since it carries a strong ideological tilt within itself - we believe it is enlightening
in decoding many urban examples in Seoul. Historico-political manipulations indeed have
multiple impacts on citizens behaviours, imaginaries, but also on urban organization,
planning and architectural issues that we can still see today in the city.
To take another theoretical understanding of the meaning of work, one could think in
Rousseau’s terms, developed in Emile or On Education, where work is seen as a social
obligation. By working, human beings pay back the debt they owe from their belonging
in a society (here, the Korean state), which is protecting them. However, it has been
later criticized as an argument to justify workers’ and lower classes exploitation, with no
regard to the fairness of this payback between individuals and the resulting inequalities.
This theoretical framework can give another light to the mass mobilization of the Korean
population to rebuild the country and restore national pride through modernization.
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REFERENCES
Choi, Jangjip. (1997). Labor Movement and the State in Korea.
Coulangeon Philippe. (2014), « Aliénation », in Paugam Serge (dir.), Les 100 mots de la
sociologie, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, coll. « Que Sais-Je ? ».
Goater, Thierry. (2010). Chapitre II. Asservissement socioéconomique. In : Thomas Hardy,
figures de l’aliénation. Rennes : Presses universitaires de Rennes
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2014), Strong performers and
successful reformers in education : lessons from PISA for Korea, Paris, France : OECD.
Soo - Hyun Kim. (2010). Issues of squatters and eviction in Seoul: From the perspectives of
the dual roles of the state
Yang, Myungji. (2012). The Making of the Urban Middle Class in South Korea (1961–1979):
Nation-Building, Discipline, and the Birth of the Ideal National Subjects
Modernity Redux
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REPUBLIC OF APARTMENTS : THE HISTORY AND IMPLICATIONS OF SETTING
A NEW HOUSING STANDARD IN SEOUL
By Léonie Yang & Thomas Janvier
Introduction
Seoul, the capital city of the Republic of Korea and the largest megalopolis of the country,
impresses visitors in many ways. The sheer verticality of the urban landscape provides a
stark and looming skyline, in which high-rise concrete buildings prevail over any other types
of housing (see Figure 1.). Multi-story buildings are a staple of many metropolitan regions
around the world, where increasing dwelling density is necessary to accomodate large
populations with limited landmass. In Seoul, the size of these buildings - on average 15
to 30 stories tall - and ubiquitousness of the form is unlikely to have emerged simply from
utilitarian concerns linked to housing availability. More deeply rooted cultural and historical
factors need to be accounted for when attempting to explain this prominence of high-rise
housing. Apartments have come to be seen as inseparable from modern Korean urban life
over the course of the country’s rapid economic development from the 1960s onwards,
and continue to retain strong cultural power as symbols of success: owning an apartment
is a necessary stepping stone for any Seoulite aspiring to attain middle-class status. This
paper’s aim is first to try and trace the genealogy of the high-rise typology in Seoul, and to
describe the major historical forces that have given birth to its present dominance. Attention
is then drawn to the way it has spatially and socially shaped Korea’s capital city, being both
status-markers and residential enclaves, as well as the attempts of the governments to
overcome its limitations.
Figure 1. Aerial view of Seoul shedding light on the prevalence of high-rise apartments in the built
environment. Photography by Léonie Yang.
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The changing housing typology of post-independence Seoul
At the end of the Korean War in 1953, South Korea was a poor and overwhelmingly rural
country with very limited natural resources and capital reserves at its disposal to spur
economic growth through industrial activities (Joo 2019). The country got independence
from Japanese colonial domination less than a decade earlier, and this protracted period of
occupation had profoundly impacted the morphology of its capital city, Seoul. Indeed, the
Japanese colonial government had introduced modern Western notions of urban planning
first applied in Tokyo, Osaka, and later, Pyongyang - in what is now the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea - which mainly consisted in widening existing roads and clearing land for
large new boulevards. In this process of ‘ordering the streets’, the original layout of Seoul,
which was guided by a Korean adaptation of Feng-Shui (Pungsu) design principles and
took the form of a pedestrian-centric and ‘chaotic’ street-pattern characterized by narrow
streets and frequent dead-ends, especially in peripheral residential neighbourhoods, was
essentially lost (Pedrabissi 2016).
The impact was also architectural, with Japanese and Western-style buildings constructed
for colonial officials and administrative departments. In the 1950s, and until the late 1960s,
the dominant form of housing, nonetheless, remained rather traditionally Korean. The urban
hanok, a low-rise U-shaped building, with rooms arranged around a central courtyard,
was an affordable and familiar housing type integrating the ondol floor-heating system vernacular to the Korean context - making it a popular residential arrangement for common
citizens (Pedrabissi 2016) (see Figure 2). Increased demographic pressure in Seoul as
refugees from war-torn areas flooded into the city, coupled with wartime destruction of
a significant portion of the capital’s housing stock, prompted the appearance of squatter
settlements on its urban fringes and hillsides, nicknamed ‘moon villages’, which organized
themselves spontaneously into detached hanoks, built with more or less durable materials
(Gelezeau 1997).
This phenomenon was further accelerated in the 1960s as the country witnessed a dramatic
rural exodus, spurred by the rapid economic growth and industrialization taking place during
the developmental state period under Park Chung-hee’s authoritarian leadership. It is during
this same period that lack of residential facilities became singled-out as a major issue in the
government’s policy agenda: South Korea’s rising GDP was driven by industrial activities in
its major cities, first amongst them Seoul, and accommodating the growing urban-based
workforce was indispensable if the country was to continue on its ascending trajectory,
and if the government wanted to maintain its legitimacy in the eyes of the people it ruled
(Pedrabissi 2016). In these conditions, the low-density housing which had dominated
Seoul’s urban landscape in the past, and continued to be developed autonomously in the
city’s periphery by recently arrived migrants from rural areas, showed its pitfalls as a remedy
to the ills of an exploding population (Joo 2019, p. 44).
The solution to this pressing issue devised by the authorities would in fact insert itself in the
continuation of the urban re-ordering process initiated under Japanese colonial occupation.
Where the Japanese had mainly concerned themselves with modernizing transportation
infrastructure and street-grids, the Korean state would take inspiration from Western
modernist architectural principles of functionalism, Fordist mass-production of housing
through standardization, if not monotonous uniformity, and promoting large-scale visions of
urban development to push forth high-rise apartments as the new model for Korean urban
living (Ham & Jang 2017).
Modernity Redux
32
Figure 2. View from the courtyard of a hanok in the center of Seoul (Namsangol Hanok village). This hanok
was restored and refurbished to look like it would have under the Joseon dynasty (1392-1897)
Photography by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, https://www.flickr.com/photos/72746018@N00/48973420241
The public-private nexus under the developmental state: diffusing the high-rise model
Though the diffusion of the high-rise apartments in Seoul was a gradual and non-linear
process, it nonetheless had dramatic consequences on Seoul’s urban profile and the
composition of its housing stock, all in a relatively short time span. This was made possible
by the overwhelming power of the state in guiding urban planning procedures and promoting
the appearance of an industrialized construction sector tightly controlled to further its
policy aims. South Korea under Park Chung-hee’s regime has been characterized as a
‘developmental dictatorship state’ given the government’s heavy intervention in the country’s
economy, as well as its strong capacity to guide economic activities by regulation and setting
targets through five-year plans (Joo 2019, pp. 21-22). The state fostered the development
of - and established a strategic alliance with - a limited number of large privately-owned
conglomerates (chaebols) in the 1960s, actors which would possess sufficient capital and
know-how to make its growth-first agenda operational. Steering chaebol activities through
tax-incentives, access to finance, and other government-granted benefits proved itself an
effective course of action to rapidly modernize the Korean economy (Fukagawa, 1997). This
logic of a strong state cooperating and colluding with chaebols was superimposed to the
real-estate sector, which, just as the rest of the economy, was to be controlled and guided
to alleviate demographic pressure and ensure continued growth mainly through the massprovision of housing.
The initial drive to build apartment complexes in the 1960s was not overwhelmingly
concentrated in Seoul’s inner-city districts (Chang-deok & Myung-jun 2011). Through
experimentation and pilot projects, the high-rise form diffused itself, physically in the
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cityscape, and more profoundly if immaterially in the collective consciousness of South
Koreans, as a symbol of modernity. Although characterized by an apparent homogeneity in
design nowadays, with south-facing linear blocks of apartments being the dominant model
responding to now clearly established consumer preferences (see Figure 3.), it is important
to note that high-rise projects have taken various forms in the early years of their appearance
in Seoul (Ham & Jang 2017). If at first the government had attempted to take on the role
of developer, this approach was quickly shown to be unsustainable given that the bulk of
public resources were directed towards industrialization, leaving insufficient state capability
to also support housing provision at the required scale (Joo 2019, p. 45). The collapse of
Wau apartments, a public housing project, definitively halted the state’s direct involvement
in construction (Woo-hyun 2019) (see Figure 4.). Rapidly increasing the volume of housing
in Seoul would only be possible by appealing to chaebols, able to complete the large
projects needed to cope with the demand for housing, contrary to the ‘traditional’ smallscale developments which were usually conducted by individual entrepreneurs or aspiring
homeowners on plots of land which they occupied (Woo-hyun 2019).
The quintessential materialization of these attempts at dramatically expanding Seoul’s housing
stock through private development projects - guided by regulation and incentive systems
set-up by the government - is probably the dramatic urbanization of Gangnam, a still-rural
area in the late 1960s and early 1970s, located south of the Han river. The government had
restricted avenues for real-estate development by implementing a green-belt area around
Seoul between 1971 and 1977, redirecting private capital towards areas such as Gangnam,
which were still legal to construct on (Joo 2019, p. 46). As a tabula rasa for applying on
a large scale the modernist principles which had already been tried out in various realestate operations dotted around Seoul, large swathes of Gangnam were targeted through
zoning legislation as uniquely suitable for high-rise development projects (Joo 2019, p. 46).
Figure 3. Apartments in Yeouido, Seoul’s main finance and investment banking district.
Photography by Léonie Yang.
Modernity Redux
34
Additionally, financial support from the
state towards chaebols, coupled with tight
restrictions on access to loans by any other
smaller developer or constructor ensured
that only massive tower complexes would
be able to sprout in Seoul’s emerging
new neighbourhood, today symbolic of
the city’s advanced economy and thriving
consumer culture (Choi & Kim 2014).
Operating in tandem with chaebols, the
Korean state thus succeeded in creating
a new image for a future-oriented Seoul,
capital city of a rapidly developing South
Korea, which found its concrete incarnation
in Gangnam’s triumphant verticality.
Figure 4. Wau apartments’ collapse in 1970.
Source: Seoul History Museum. http://h2.khan.
co.kr/201607011751001
High-rise apartments disrupting and shaping the city: homogenization, eviction and
residential enclaving
The process of urban development and redevelopment has been particularly detrimental to
Korean low-income residents. Paving the way for the dominance of high-rise apartments in
the residential sector has necessitated the destruction of entire neighborhoods composed
of ‘traditional housing’. The latter had some downfalls in terms of energy-efficiency and
safety norms, but they could have, in some cases, been solved through proper renovation
or ‘upgradation’ of the existing buildings. Although the government has been increasingly
implementing preservation of ancient districts and buildings in its policies since the 1980s,
the massive process of evictions it undertook from the 1950s to the 1970s has been
particularly violent. Largely carried out without proper compensation, and on very shortnotice, residents of cleared neighbourhoods often found themselves with no resources to
relocate in equivalent living conditions and comfort. Regulations are stricter nowadays but
this phenomenon still persists in the poorest areas inhabited by citizens with scarce financial
resources. In the process of ‘raising living standards’ and housing successive waves of
rural migrants, the built environment has been reshaped through the destruction of entire
communities and their sense of neighborhood. The Seoul Metropolitan government has
started the Human Town Project, aimed at ‘fighting the high-rise threat’ (Sung 2010), by
improving the quality of life for residents living in ‘villas’ through the provision of neighborhood
facilities, thanks to a bottom-up approach with more active citizen participation.
In addition to a change in the architectural landscape, with new living standards and
homogeneity as a striking feature of the Korean context, the apartment form of housing has
strongly shaped and limited land use and social diversity. Indeed, the larger the residential
complexes, the lower the costs for amenities shared among the residents, such as children’s
playgrounds, paths, parking lots but also the diversity and variety of commercial shops
due to agglomeration effects. Studies found that as the size of the complex doubled, the
property value that buyers intend to pay increased by 4%. Yet, this ‘club goods’ logic has
created large swaths of residential areas that cannot be entered by outsiders, i.e. gated
communities (Yang 2017). In these large strictly-residential compounds, equipped with
outdoor and indoor connected technologies (surveillance cameras, security offices, home
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automation), the emphasis has been put on verticality, convenience, and safety, but has
somehow destroyed the sense of neighborhood that could be felt in traditional districts, at
a more human scale. Inside each apartment, the layout is identical: a heated and wooden
floor, a leather couch, a large refrigerator, a sizable TV screen and fast internet connection,
regardless of its location in Korea. Professor Lim from Sungkyunkwan University assesses:
‘The interior of every apartment in Seoul and even Jeju Island is the same’ (Lim 2010).
Limits to the high-rise homeownership standard: socio-economic strains of high-rise
cultural supremacy, and early attempts at state redressal
Contrary to many Western countries, where this type of housing has been associated with
low-income neighbourhoods, the high-rise apartment has become the norm for Koreans
living in Seoul (Kim 2003). According to Statistics Korea, apartment homes came to 10.3
million in 2019, which accounts for 60.6% of homes (Kim 2019). Koreans have started from
scratch in the aftermath of the Korean War, and have developed a taste for the new as a
sign of wealth and prosperity, for those who can afford to buy brand-new products. The
middle class, which benefited from the “Miracle on the Han River”, has been able to acquire
at least one if not several properties, through a legal framework promoting mortgages on
apartments more actively than on other types of housing (Sung 2010). Korean families
bought apartments prior to their construction through the allotment system (bunyang),
which consisted of a fierce competition between buyers to purchase a property at belowmarket rates whose value would skyrocket when construction ended, providing the middle
class with a straightforward path to wealth through homeownership in high-rise apartment
complexes.
Being a homeowner has become a major criterion of life success, and a reflection of one’s
status in society for nuclear families (see Figure 5.), breaking with traditional patterns of
staying with extended family under the same roof, mostly in rural areas. Apartments have
become a symbol of social recognition, an “apartment ownership” based identity has
emerged, replacing the traditional identity defined according to one’s original birthplace
(kohyang) (Gelézeau 2007). If the traditional household represented a place that had to be
overwatched by women called jibboda (literally ‘looking after the house’), the apartment was
presented an opportunity to go to work without worrying about safety. Yet, the apartment
standard has also impacted women’s ways of life negatively. It has led to situations where
working women are renting smaller apartments and sending their children to their mother
in-laws in the countryside to save some money and buy a larger unit so that their children
do not get discriminated against for living in a house or other low-rise dwellings. Prices
depend on the school a child will be able to attend depending on his place of residence,
as education represents a huge investment and stake in the Korean society. For instance,
the district of Gangnam has a dense concentration of privately operated extracurricular
schools named hakwon which are vastly attended by Korean students hoping to get into the
most prestigious universities, especially SKY (Seoul National University, Korea University and
Yonsei University). As a consequence, the real estate value in this area fluctuates according
to the educational policies of the government (Sung 2010).
Since 2000, speculative activities in the real estate market have become more and more
intense. It is increasingly difficult to be a homeowner. The middle class is pushed further
away from the city of Seoul which has become unable to house the numerous urban
dwellers aspiring to benefit from the opportunities concentrated in the capital city. In Seoul,
the ‘ratio of housing price to household annual income is about 10 times’, which is three
to four times higher than in other economically advanced countries, despite government
Modernity Redux
36
anti-speculative measures such as the increase in capital gains and property taxes (for a
representation of how this high cost of apartments compares with the cost of other dwelling
types, see Figure 6.). Real estate policies have become major issues in political campaigns
at all levels, from the municipal to the Presidential one (Choi 2019). Moreover, the uniquely
Korean rental system named cheonsei, consisting in making a lump-sum deposit worth
50% to 80% of the unit’s market value, has started to present some limitations. Indeed,
the economic conditions that characterized Korea (rising house prices, rising interest rates,
shortage of rental housing units) have faded as large-scale housing units were provided and
people became more pessimistic over housing price escalation (OECD 2018). The youth is
nowadays facing employment insecurity and finding it difficult to settle down in urban areas
as a family, directing them towards the private rental sector or the public rental sector (OECD
2019). Further, this is one of the reasons why the government is struggling to tackle two
demographic trends: a low birth rate and an aging population.
The Seoul Metropolitan government has started to develop its public rental housing sector,
not only by purchasing small-size studios rented at lower-than market rates but also by
promising to supply 62,000 public homes by 2022 with apartments’ standards for the
building envelope area. During a meeting in their offices while on our study trip, Seong-hee
Cheon, the General Manager of the Housing Welfare Planning Department at Seoul Housing
Corporation, insisted on the fact that the historically significant state intervention in the Korean
real-estate market was increasingly leveraged to push for social housing quotas in publicly
backed new-town developments, with Mayor Park promising 10% of the city’s housing
stock to be public by the end of his mandate1. The central government has encouraged
the building of residential towns sprouting at the periphery of Seoul and in other provinces
to curb the rising prices due to the disproportionate concentration of opportunities in the
capital city, often at the expense of the green belt (Lee 2018). However, it has been obliged
to control more strictly large developers, such as the construction branches of Samsung
and Hanhwa, which have been trying to offset a plunge in orders from the Middle East where
they were very active in the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed, in other Korean cities, oversupply has
started to seriously threaten the real estate market, leaving consumers unable to purchase
brand new high-rise apartments (Kim 2016).
Conclusion
In the past decade, Korean public organizations such as the Korea Land and Housing
Corporation and the Korea International Cooperation Agency and construction companies
like Hanwha and Hyundai Engineering have started to export their expertise developed
over decades abroad. They introduce themselves as the ‘Korean style smart towns and
apartments’ promoting Western living standards, Korean features and technologies, and
a relatively reasonable price considering their large-scale development. Some countries
Korea is working with are Paraguay, Bolivia, Algeria, Ethiopia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Nepal, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and China (Kim 2018). These residential enclaves as an
alternative to other forms of housing nevertheless represent a serious threat to land use
and social inclusiveness. They might reinforce spatial and social segregations in the long
run and hence deepen the inequality gap between those who can afford living in them and
those who cannot. The republic of apartments still has a long way to go in finding ways to
tackle deepening inequalities domestically, and to avoid them being perpetuated abroad.
This model is also still put to the test regarding its capacity to provide long-lasting buildings,
and requires further innovation in its recycling chain.
1
Personal communication, SHC, 2020.
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Figure 5. Survey of 3560 Korean people
conducted in 2009 regarding housing
Figure 6. Seoul Housing Price Index by Housing
Type. Black: Housing cooperative. Red: Apartments.
Modernity Redux
38
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Choi, H. (2019). A national obsession. The Korea Herald. Retrieved from http://www.
koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20190109000743
Choi, M. J. & Kim, Y. (2015). Why have big construction companies replaced real estate
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Fukagawa, Y. (1997). Chaebol-led High Growth System in South Korea. East Asian Development
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Gelézeau, V. (1997). Renewal for moon villages in Seoul: rebuilding the city and setting sociospatial segregation. L’espace géographique, 26(1), 1-11. Retrieved from https://www.persee.
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Gelézeau, V. (2007). “La République des Appartements. Regards d’une géographe française
sur les grands-ensembles sud-coréens”, Humanitas.
Ham, S. & Jang, N. (2017). A study on courtyard apartment types in South Korea from the
1960s to 1970s. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 6(2), 149-156. Retrieved from https://
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Joo, Yu-Min. (2019). Megacity Seoul: Urbanization and the Development of Modern South
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Kim, D. (2003). Comparison of Korean and French Housing Policy through the Examination
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Kim Y. (2018). Korean-style apartment complexes go global. The Korea Herald. Retrieved from
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Lee, C. (2018). Seoul city to provide 5,000 public housing per year. The Korea Herald. Retrieved
from http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20180926000167
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Publishing, Paris. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264298880-en
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from https://doi.org/10.1787/4bf4a6d2-en
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Modernity Redux
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COMPETITIVENESS AS A BRANDING STRATEGY: TRACING THE HISTORY
AND TENSIONS OF SEOUL’S URBAN GOVERNANCE
By Beifan Li & Mona Menadi
Introduction
In the common narratives of Seoul’s history, the “fifty years of rapid growth and development”
often appears as the key phrase. From the visit to the Seoul History Museum, to the Korea
Land & Housing Corporation, from water treatment facilities to cultural and art organizations,
these keywords frequently encapsulate the shared memories of Korea’s modern history,
with a striking uniformity. If speed were to be the mantra of Seoul’s past, then “global city”
sums up Seoul’s present and future. New development projects, completed or ongoing,
ambitiously position Seoul among international metropolises like New York, Paris, and
London and project its future as a central node with financial flows. The country’s rhetoric
greatly emphasizes the global competitiveness of its capital city. Outside the national frontier,
Seoul markets itself as a global metropolis. Looking inward, Seoul brands itself as a green,
smart, and happy city. This paper seeks to understand, from a historic perspective, to what
extent this national branding strategy impacts urban governance and policy. If Seoul intends
to benchmark itself against western metropolises, how does that translate to an urban
reality?
Global Competitiveness: How Korea’s Self-branding Impacts Seoul’s Urban Policy
From the City Hall to its History Museum, Seoul brands itself as a global city. However,
Seoul’s development model is drastically different from the globalists’ concept of a world
city. Sassen (1999) and Friedmann’s (1995) world cities like New York and London often
dismiss the role of the state and focus solely on the cities and their financial networks. In
contrast, the rapid state-led urbanization in the second half of the century makes Seoul
a distinctively different model from the standard world city paradigm. Hill and Kim (2000)
argue that while New York and London are “market-centered and bourgeois,” Seoul’s
late industrialization makse it “state-centered and political-bureaucratic.” This comparison
highlights an imperative to investigate Seoul’s history in order to understand the nuances of
its global city positioning and tag.
Seoul’s population grew from 2.4 million to 8.3 million between 1960 and 1980, quadrupling
in twenty years following Korea’s liberation from Japan and the Korean War (Joo, 2019)
. The accelerated urbanization led to many problems related to overcrowding including
famine, water, sanitation, etc. To accommodate the explosive demands and curb the
increasing expansion of informal settlements and shanty towns, the state initiated largescale apartment projects that largely resemble what we see today: towering apartments of
more than 10 to 20 stories high, with uniform forms and balconies, usually coming in more
than ten buildings at a time. These complexes “comprise nearly 60 percent of housing stock
in Seoul and in Korea.” (ibid.) With the goal to construct quick, many, and cheap, Seoul’s
uniform physical structure was a byproduct of its urbanization and development. In housingscarce cities, these types of developments are not particularly exceptional. Scholar Anne
Halai in 2016 introduced the term “property state,” to describe the role of private real estate
developers in land-scarce cities like Singapore and Hong Kong (ibid). In Korea, the role
of the private developers is instead spearheaded by state-led corporations like the Korea
Land and Housing Corporation (LH). LH has an unparalleled financial and legal capacity to
build massive urban real estate and expand the urban fringe. Because of the top-down,
state-centered approach, Seoul’s uniform physical appearance as a rapidly-urbanized
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capital is unique from the world cities like New York and London, which present diverse
neighborhoods constructed by various developers and actors.
The state’s ambition to compete globally continued to impact Seoul’s urban history. Mega
events like the Olympics can be qualified as “relevant sites of global authority” (Collins,
2008.) Following the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Korea’s successful bid for the 1988 Seoul
Olympics was seen as a way of staking its claim in a predominantly Western-defined global
stage. Manzenreiter and Horne (2002) highlight the 1988 Olympics as a way to showcase
Korean economic and technological achievements. The capital city Seoul often bears the
weight of the state’s ambition to introduce itself as a rapidly-modernizing country with global
competitiveness.
Since then, Seoul has invested and completed the Big Four mega events: Olympic Games
(1988), the World Expo (1993), the FIFA World Cup (2002), and the Winter Olympics (2018).
Black and Van der Westhuizen (2004) noted the act of hosting major global games as a
“pivotal strategic response to the exigencies of globalisation,” aiming for both a perceived
increasing marketing power and a political legitimation through celebrating national identity.
With these objectives, the branding of Seoul therefore often included an invisible Western
spectator. The presentation of Seoul as a globally-competitive city is therefore a political tool
that serves a national political and economic goal. As Black and Van der Westhuizen (2004)
further elucidate: “[E]stablishing a country’s status as a brand is trumpeted as a means to
attract foreign students to its universities, tourists to its hotels, investors to its economy
and media moguls to project images of its cities, people, architecture, culture, and food on
screens across the globe.”
The globally-competitiveness branding strategy has found its way throughout different levels
and types of organizations in Seoul. At Incheon’s Free Economic Zone, the promotional
video referenced the newly-developed suburbs as a “global business frontier.” At Korea’s
top Yonsei University’s newly constructed Songdo campus, a one hour drive from its main
campus in Seoul, various collaborations with Western universities were often prized as
part of its “global push” as Korea’s “window to the world”1. These are just a few of the
illustrations of the impact of the national branding strategy on the capital, which bears the
weight to champion itself against global benchmarks. However, as seen repeatedly, the
emphasis on modernization and development has led to forced evictions, displacements,
and gentrification in Seoul, which will be discussed later in this book. The other side of the
coin is less glamorous, and often connected to the marketing ambitions of the state to pitch
its capital against global metropoles - in the process of which other prices had to be paid.
Competitiveness Translated into City Branding Post-decentralization Reform: Cases
of the Cheonggyecheon Restoration and the K-Smart City
A change of paradigm occurred in 1998 when Seoul directly elected for the first time a fullterm mayor named Kun Goh. This decentralization of power from the national government
allowed the city to develop according to its own agenda, while answering to national goals
and policies. Seoul governance under Mayor Kun Goh turned citizen-centric. Goh reduced
government staff, eliminated agencies and privatized some administrative functions, while
creating partnerships with citizen groups, inviting them into policy decisions. His ambition
was to achieve “good governance” while also attempting to establish an e-government
(Lee, 2010). These drastic changes in city operation had a strong impact on the following
urban developments and on the city branding strategies developed by Mayor Kun Goh’s
1
Yonsei University Website: https://oia.yonsei.ac.kr/intro/messPre.asp
Modernity Redux
42
successors.
The Cheonggyecheon Restoration
Mayor Lee Myung-bak, mayor of Seoul from 2002 to 2006, published a cultural and
environmental vocational note called “Seoul Vision 2006” which planned to transform Seoul
into one of the most citizen-friendly and eco-friendly metropolises of the World. This change
in the city’s development paradigm, from growth-oriented to a balance between growth
and the environment, arrived when there was high national pressure to increase the global
visibility of Seoul. Different restoration projects would help raise Seoul as an international
symbol for the country (Lee and Anderson, 2013).
The Cheonggyecheon restoration is the centerpiece of Seoul Vision 2006. It consisted in
revitalizing the Cheonggyecheon Stream located in downtown Seoul, previously covered
by a highway. The urban renewal project goal was to promote a more eco-friendly urban
design by reintroducing green spaces and promoting the city’s historical heritage. Here,
the city-rebranding is clear: Seoul is a people-oriented, culturally rich and environmentally
appealing city. The goals of such development were also clear; Mayor Lee Myung-bak
stated that “once the stream is restored, we want this area to stand out as a center of
foreign investment. The ultimate goal is to make Seoul a great city, one that can compete as
an attractive center of business with Shanghai, Tokyo and Beijing” (Krinik, 2011). Therefore,
behind the culture-rich, eco-friendly and people-oriented city branding were Seoul’s global
city ambitions. This project is often referred to as “the most successful urban renewal project
in terms of long-term impact on economic growth and urban development in Seoul” (ibid).
This is for a number of reasons. Most importantly, it has been instrumental in the aggressive
marketing of “global Seoul” by promoting a new image of the city, while helping increase its
economy and its international profile by actively participating in the development of cultural
tourism. It also addressed difficult urban issues left aside, improving the quality of life around
the stream.
Krinik (2011) refers to the Cheonggyecheon restoration as a symbolic reconstruction that
can be seen as an outcome of competitive urban policy. These city branding strategies put
in place by Mayor Lee Myung-bak proved to be efficient. The city was ranked in the top
10 on the A.T. Kearney Global Cities Index for several years after the Cheonggyecheon
restoration and moved up to an Alpha on the Global and World Index between 2000 and
2010 (Lee and Anderson, 2013).
The K-Smart City
Mayor Park Won-soon, mayor of Seoul from 2010 to 2020, focused the city branding of the
metropolis on the development of a sustainable smart city. The e-government that Mayor
Kun Goh had introduced during his mandate had evolved and the will of Mayor Park was
to go beyond this concept. Seoul has been involved in the World Smart Cities Organization
(WeGO, based on its previous name: World e-Governments Organization of Cities and Local
Governments) since its launch in 2010. It even took the chair of the organization 3 years in
a row (Lee and Anderson, 2013). This global network has been a privileged space for the
promotion of Seoul’s technology and digital policies.
One of the most emblematic features of Seoul’s Smart City is its Smart City Platform
established in 2017. It is presented as the “core tool for smart administration as being the
world’s first smart city platform based on 32 million administrative big data and cutting-edge
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information and communications technology (ICT)” . The Smart City Platform displays public
data and is constantly evolving with new technologies such as artificial intelligence or voice
recognition. This urban planning and management tool has been accessible to every citizen
since April 20203, following the objective set by Mayor Kun Goh in designing a citizenempowered city. The Smart City Platform is promoted worldwide, and many cities around
the world show interest in importing the system. To address this demand, Seoul created
Appia Consortium, which is a public-private consultative body advising cities around the
world that are interested in becoming more “smart”4. Practically, this entity has effectively
been able to export the “K-Smart City” experience to various cities worldwide.
2
Seoul Smart City is a strong branding strategy and places the city on the map of the ongoing
Global Smart City competition. Transparency on the urban management of the city and on
the accountability of the government are advertised to the citizens. Yet, the impact on the
freedom and privacy of the inhabitants is less talked about.
Conclusion
Global competitiveness has been a major driver of Seoul’s city branding across time. First by
the organization of major mega-events with high urban and economic development goals
attached. Then by the influence of global trends, such as the sustainable city or the smart
city. Great efforts have been made to parallel global metropolises such as New York, London,
and Tokyo. These branding strategies not only impacted domestic policy making and urban
planning, but also became part of the smart city product itself, exporting to various cities
around the world. The remaining question is the impact of such branding strategies on
Seoul’s citizens themselves. Privacy and freedom are sometimes overlooked, secondary to
the city’s ambition to become smart, sustainable, and globally competitive. How much of the
human-centric policy approach can be grounded to real changes for citizens, or is it part of
the evolving branding strategy of the city? This question remains to be answered.
Seoul Metropolitan Government Website: http://english.seoul.go.kr/
ibid.
4
Seoul Smart City Platform White Paper – Manual of Smart City for Citizens and Mayor, Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2019
2
3
Modernity Redux
44
REFERENCES
Black, D.R. and Van der Westhuizen, J. (2004). The Allure of Global Games for ‘Semi-peripheral’
Plities and Spaces: A Research Agenda. Third World Quarterly, Vol. 25, No.7, pp. 1195-1214.
Collins, S. (2008). “The Fragility of Asian National Identity in the Olympic Games.” Owning the
Olympics. Edited by Monroe E. Price, Daniel Dayan. University of Michigan Press.
Friedmann, J. (1995). Where we stand: a decade of world city research, in P. Knox and P. Taylor
(Eds) World Cities in a World System, pp. 21– 47. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hill, R.C. and Kim, J.W. (2000). Global Cities and Developmental States: New York, Tokyo and
Seoul. Urban Studies, Vol.37, No. 12, 2167-2195.
Lee, J.Y. (2010). Theory and application of urban governance: The case of Seoul. Journal of
Urban Technology
Lee, Y.Y. and Anderson, C.D. (2013). The restored Cheonggyecheon and the Quality of Life in
Seoul, Journal of Urban Technology, Volume 20.
Joo, Y. (2019). Megacity Seoul: Urbanization and the Development of Modern South Korea.
Routledge.
Krinik, B. (2011). Selling Global Seoul: Competitive urban Policy and Symbolic Reconstruction
of Cities.
Manzenreiter, W. and Horne, J. (2002). Global Governance in World Sport and the 2002 World
Cup Korea/Japan. In Japan, Korea and the 2002 World Cup, ed. John Horne and Wolfram
Manzenreiter, 1–25. London: Routledge.
Sassen, S. (1999). Global Financial centers, Foreign Affairs, 78, pp. 75– 87.
Seoul Smart City Platform White Paper. (2019). Manual of Smart City for Citizens and Mayor,
Seoul Metropolitan Government.
1st Part
45
Modernity Redux
© Photo: Bridging the gap. Songdo 2020. Alexandra van Milink.
47
2
GLOBAL AMBITION
& LOCAL MEDIATION
THE GOVERNANCE DICHOTOMY
OF AN EMERGENT WORLD CITY
48
GOVERNING THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE DEVELOPMENTAL STATE
By Florinda Bartoli
The South Korean state experienced an incredibly strong growth since the end of the Korean
War in 1953. Quite rapidly, its capital city, Seoul, rose from the ruins of its past to a global
city. This phenomenon has made Seoul and South Korea the centre of numerous studies
on developing countries turning into pumping hearts of the modern economy. Therefore,
the South Korean “economic miracle” (Desouza, 1998; Kim, 2002; Pak, 2016) has been
praised and analysed thoroughly. Yet, under the pressures of an increasing internalisation
of its economy, it started to show its weaknesses and the need for adaptation. Firstly, it has
been increasingly harder for the state to generate opportunities for profitable investments,
provoking a reduction of the number of financial inflows and augmenting the pressures
on consumers (Pirie, 2018). Secondly the industrial bases of the Korean economy shifted
from industrial to post-industrial, with a focus on services and advanced technologies, that
changed the socio-economic structure of the country itself and, perhaps, the basis of the
developmental model (Pirie, 2018). Finally, the lack of a strong welfare system, inherent into
the developmental state’s logics, increased social inequalities with the adoption of more
neoliberal policies after the 90s. Given the aforementioned concepts, this paper will illustrate
how recent changes in Seoul’s governance, such as the participatory democratic model,
represent an attempt to fix the negative externalities of the developmental era as well as an
effort to adapt governance in the city and to a new politico-economic configuration.
Economic Background
The development of Seoul and South Korea heavily relied on private investments, yet state
coordination decreased from the 90s, following a more neo-liberal model (Chang, Park, and
Yoo, 1998) thereby leaving firms more independent. Nevertheless, even before the Asian
crisis in 1997, the rate of profit from those investments kept decreasing, reaching a low of
6.1% in 1996 (Pirie, 2018). At the same time, the capital-output ratio, meaning the amount
of capital needed to produce a unit, was rising, making not only investments but even
production less advantageous (Jeong 2007, 58 –60).
The situation for investments in South Korea was unsustainable and the burden shifted
increasingly towards private households, a structure that persists till date. In fact, in the ten
years from 1996 to 2006, the households that were borrowing money doubled from 25
to 50% (Chung 2009, 86), while corporate borrowing decreased, and their savings went
up to 33% of GDP, illustrating the basic lack of any attractive possibility for investments.
Since households rather than companies were the ones spending and borrowing more,
their debt more than doubled as well, reaching 184% of their disposable income in 2018
(OECD 2020a).
Considering the indebtment of households and the lack of investments on the firms’ side, it
is hard to keep defining South Korea as a ‘developmental state’, since its financial system
has shifted. Nevertheless, the past economic model still has impacts and consequences
on the current imbalances in Korean lives and has left a major mark on the structuring
of social inequalities in the country. Given the concept of path-dependency, it would be
hard for the government to completely steer away from a developmental mentality. Hence,
the developmental past of the South Korean economy and state still shapes the present
policies. Yet, some different economic and social ideas can be slowly integrated into the
system. While the incorporation of neo-liberal policies came before the structuring of a
2nd Part
49
comprehensive, redistributive welfare system, more recent actions seem to be taking
into consideration the need to address inequalities. Such policies, while still in need of
improvement, reduced Korea’s Gini coefficient so that the country performed better than
the US or the UK (OECD 2020b). While the whole Korean state has to deal with some
consequences of the developmental state, Seoul seems to have adapted earlier than the
rest of the country, adopting more participatory processes of policy making and trying to
expand their welfare programs. To underline the importance of Seoul’s role in coping with
the consequences of past economic choices, the housing market and housing-related
policies appears as the strongest example.
Housing in Seoul
Currently, half of the entire Korean population lives in the Seoul Metropolitan Area, but even
in the past the city was a main point for urban concentration. Only in recent years has
the urbanisation rate started to decrease. Due to the high attractivity of the city, housing
shortage has always been a main issue. High-rise apartments quickly became the main
construction type in Seoul, and even if the construction rhythms were impressive, there was
a constant lack of housing, leading to a steady increase of prices.
Consequently, the amount of people that could not afford to sustain housing costs in the
city rose and specific policies targeting the struggling households were needed. While it
has been initially tackled by the central state, the Seoul Metropolitan Government took an
increasingly proactive role in the shaping of housing policies and provision. Already from
1989, the Seoul Metropolitan government started to provide public housing to the people
living in the area, complementing the actions of the National Government that started public
housing policies from 1962. In the following years however, strategies and funds changed,
in adaptation to space restrictions and financial needs.
According to the Asian Development Bank Institute, the first projects of public housing in
the late eighties were carried out by the metropolitan government, building on the city’s
properties. The projects were carried out by the Seoul Housing & Communities Corporation,
created for that specific mission, but the land needed was more than what was planned,
forcing the SMG to change its strategy and rely increasingly on the private sector for new
big developments.
The liberalisation of the housing market that took place between the 90s and the early
2000s shifted the power in the housing finance market, with commercial bankers rather
than governmental actors being the major lenders and increasing the mortgage debt to
31% of the GDP (Kim and Cho 2014). While the ratio is not too astounding compared to
other developed countries, it is important to underline that it is a part of an already big debt
Korean households live under. Financialization of housing made it more dependable on the
private sector and on strong property development projects, transforming housing from a
right to a commodity. Considering the lack of space in the core of Seoul, this often took the
form of urban regeneration programs or urban renewal. Yet, the increase in prices combined
with a lower economic growth than expected forced several Asian economies, South Korea
included, to provide some sort of assisted housing to the weakest parts of its population.
Furthermore, considering how particularly pressing housing issues were in the capital, it
gave the SMG the chance to affirm its governing power over metropolitan dynamics.
The city of Seoul started directly buying housing units in 2002, to then redistribute as public
housing. From 2007, it also started an affordable housing program aimed at middle classes,
Global Ambition and Local Mediation
50
called SHift, that demanded a lump-sum deposit (between 50% and 80% of the market
value) instead of a monthly rent. While the program has political roots in SMG, its financial
backing was linked to the National Public Housing Fund, yet until SHift, those funds were
limited to the lowest income quartile (Kim and Cho, 2014). In addition to that, SHift also
included zoning policy that forced land developers to include 17 to 20% of social housing
in their developments (Ha, 2010). The policy led to higher redistribution from urban renewal
capital gains. Finally, low-income residents can apply to the Cheonsei program for lower
interest rates than private banks combined with an up to 6 years lent for the house deposit.
(Kim and Han, 2012).
In more recent years, the trend of increased autonomy of the Seoul Metropolitan Government
vis-à-vis the central state continued, and housing was a central issue to that. In fact, by the
end of 2013, 70% of the existing public house estates in Seoul were supplied by the Seoul
Housing Corporation (SH) (Kim and Cho, 2014), hence under the lead of local authorities
rather than national ones. The Land and Housing Corporation (LH), at the national scale, was
then responsible for the remaining 30%. The trend continued after 2013, with Mayor Park
Won-Soon, elected in 2011, providing an additional 25% of public housing between 2012
and 2017 and promising even more (Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2016). Nevertheless,
it is important to reconstruct the financing of those public housing structures.
Future scenarios and conflicts
As indicated previously, despite neoliberal tendency, deregulation and privatization, housing
and land policies are still characterised by their developmental state past, hence they are still
under state control. Yet, the decrease in centralisation, the rise of entrepreneurialism and the
solidification of democratic practises has empowered local government. This empowerment
has led to more pressures on metropolitan governance, which pushed the city of Seoul to
take the lead on public housing policies. While public and assisted housing is nowadays
one of the main goals of Mayor Park, the finances of those projects mainly come from
other forms of land developing. Private housing and smart cities are the current Korean
strategy to gain money from the land. The SMG adopted the same techniques as well, as
demonstrated by SH’s project “Magok, R&D Complex Development” and “Sangam DMC,
IT Media Complex Development”. Both projects are led by the metropolitan government of
the city of Seoul. They consist of urban redevelopment projects offering private companies
and international actors a thematic area to create special hubs. They market them for their
services, green areas and for Seoul’s location in the international sphere. The business and
industrial areas, combined with private properties help the city finance the construction of
public housing. However they do not identify the main issue as housing. Firstly, housing and
land remain considered as commodities, rather than necessities. Secondly, it is important
for the national and local government to keep land prices high so that new developments
can be profitable. Thirdly, private actors remain the main funders of public projects, even if
in an indirect way. Hence, the public housing program in Seoul remains strongly attached
to market logics and variations, making the system susceptible to changes in preferences
or demographics.
For example, the Korean population is currently shrinking and aging, with fewer children
and longer life expectancies. This reduces the number of potential buyers in the private
market, hence reducing the profit companies would make in developing the land and
potentially decreasing funding for public housing. Furthermore, new generations seem to
dislike the apartment housing style, and they are not as capable of buying houses as an
asset compared to the previous generations (Lee, 2016). This could potentially create too
large a housing supply, incapable of maintaining land prices high enough for governments
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51
to make profit out of. While on the one hand a decrease in land prices might make the
private market more affordable, it could also drain funds from public and assisted housing
programs, increasing inequalities.
For the future, the Seoul Metropolitan Government will probably have to keep bargaining its
position towards the central government to maintain an equilibrium between land prices’
inflation and deflation. At the same time, political changes might undermine the current
stability as well. While the current composition of the National Assembly, elected in 2016,
is smoothing the tensions between local and national government, Mayor Park could
encounter more difficulties in case the Conservatives win the 2020 elections or the 2022
presidential race, creating a conflict between two opposite political parties.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that the Seoul Metropolitan Government has been trying to use
urban inequalities and households’ bankruptcy to gain more independence in local planning
and housing. However, pressures from the private market are still strong, since techniques
used by current agencies such as the SH are the same ones of those used at the national
level (LH). Furthermore, the developmental past of South Korea is still determining the role
of housing in the local economy, the financialization of land and housing and the role of
the private sectors towards households. Current economic elements, such as households’
increasing debts, as well as sociological trends, such as the shrinking size of Korean
families, are putting more pressure on the stability of the current model and underlining its
fragility. Finally, political changes might worsen the current situation even more, creating
tensions between democratic and conservative plans. The Seoul Metropolitan Government
should outline its priorities and formulate policies that recognise people’s rights to housing
by regulating the centrality of private actors in land developing. Otherwise, public housing
programs might not be enough to cope with increasing urban inequalities and households’
indebtment and bankruptcy.
Global Ambition and Local Mediation
52
REFERENCES
Chung, K. (2009). “Household Debt, the Savings Rate and Monetary Policy: The Korean
Experience.” Basel: Bank of International Settlements, Working Paper 48.
DeSouza, W. E. de. (1998). The South Korean economic miracle. Pune: Dastane Ramchandra
& Co.
Chang, H.-J., H.-J. Park, and C. Yoo. (1998). “Interpreting the Korean Crisis: Financial
Liberalisation, Industrial Policy and Corporate Governance.” Cambridge Journal of
Economics 22 (6): 735–746.
Ha, S.-K. (2010). Housing, social capital and community development in Seoul. Cities, 27,
s35–s42
Jeong, S. 2007. “Trends of Marxian Ratios in Korea: 1970–2003.” In Marxist Perspectives
on South Korea in the Global Economy, edited by M. Hart-Landsberg, S. Jeong, and R.
Westra, 35–81. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Kim, K. H., and M. Cho. (2014). Mortgage Markets International. In Pubic Real Estate
Markets and Investment, edited by P. Chinloy, and K. Baker. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kim, J. (2002). The South Korean economy: towards a new explanation of an economic
miracle. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Lee, J. (2013). Understanding Korea Hangeoul. In The Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Edited by The Center for International Affairs.
Lee, Y.-S., & Shin, H. (2011). Negotiating the Polycentric City-region: Developmental State
Politics of New Town Development in the Seoul Capital Region. Urban Studies, 49(6), 1333–
1355. doi: 10.1177/0042098011411947
Park, S. C. (2017). East Asian Culture and Economic Miracle: The South Korean Experience.
Institutions and Economics, 8, 1-24.
Pirie I. (2018) Korea and Taiwan: The Crisis of Investment-Led Growth and the End of the
Developmental State, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 48:1, 133-158.
OECD. (2020a). “Household debt” (indicator), https://doi.org/10.1787/f03b6469-en
(accessed on 02 March 2020).
OECD. (2020b). Income inequality (indicator). doi: 10.1787/459aa7f1-en (Accessed on 02
March 2020)
Seoul Metropolitan Government (2016). Seoul Public Housing & Architecture First Jeong,
Youn Gil, Architecture Planning Division (jyk0archi@seoul.go.kr) Seoul, Jung Im, Architecture
Planning Division (seollaim@seoul.go.kr) Designed by A&F communication.
2nd Part
53
AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN SEOUL: FROM A STATE-SPONSORED PROPERTY
MARKET TO PUBLIC RENTAL HOUSING
By Lucie Lescudé-Plaa & Ying Zhang
South Korea’s fast-paced economic growth in the second part of the twentieth century
has been associated with a growing concentration of population and economic activities
in its capital city, Seoul. The government’s industrialization strategy led to the creation of
new manufacturing jobs in the capital city, which attracted many new inhabitants from
the countryside: between 1966 and 1970, Seoul’s population grew 9.4% annually (Joo,
2019), and fast urban growth continued into the following decades. Given this influx of
new inhabitants, the city’s existing housing stock soon became insufficient, which led many
people to resort to informal housing: in the 1960s and 1970s, an estimated 20-30% of
Seoul’s urban area was made up of slums and squatter settlements (Kim & Han, 2012).
As a result, housing policy until the 1990s focused mostly on boosting housing supply and
on fostering urban regeneration to redevelop dilapidated urban areas. During this period,
the state took an active role in stimulating the Korean real estate market, especially for the
mass construction of apartment complexes, which are a prominent feature of Seoul’s urban
landscape until today. Though very profitable for the private sector, the state-sponsored
construction of apartments targeted a wide range of income groups that included the
middle-class and lower middle-class. In that sense, it has been largely successful in bridging
Seoul’s housing deficit (Joo, 2019). However, slum clearance which was carried out as part
of urban regeneration in Seoul’s urban core displaced low-income residents. Many were
evicted from their homes and could not afford to remain in the newly redeveloped areas (Kim
& Han, 2012). In sum, during this period the government adopted a supply-based approach
to housing welfare, assuming that reducing housing shortage and increasing the housing
supply ratio would drive prices down and meet the housing needs of most of the population.
This strategy was successful in bridging the quantitative housing gap: in 2014, the housing
supply ratio in Seoul reached 103% (OECD, 2018). It also made housing accessible to a
larger part of the population and reduced housing informality: from 30% in 1960, only 10%
of Korean lived in informal settlements in the 1980s (Kim, 2014). However, until the 1990s,
there was no consistent framework for providing housing to the lowest-income households
(Lee & Ronald, 2012).
With the slowing down of population growth, and as Seoul no longer suffers from a
quantitative housing deficit, the focus of urban development and housing policies has shifted
to new types of projects, including new town construction under the smart city concept.
On the other hand, the public sector has developed a framework to improve the housing
conditions of low-income families. Indeed, despite an increase in housing supply, land and
rent values have continued to increase, and housing prices tripled between 1986 and 2008,
making private-market housing unaffordable for an important part of the population (Kim
& Han, 2012). In 1989, the first large-scale public housing program was introduced in the
form of permanent rental housing. It targeted very low-income families who were receiving
welfare assistance. Since then, the public housing system expanded to include many
different programs, each of them with different levels of government subsidy, lease period
and eligibility criteria. Nowadays, there are more than 20 different types of public rental
housing in South Korea, as well as public housing for sale.
From a residual approach in its early stages, public housing today caters to a larger part of
the population, with some newer public housing programs including the middle-class. For
example, Shift Housing, which originated in Seoul, is a type of public housing available to
those earning up to 180% of the average monthly income (Chen, Man & Stephens, 2014).
Global Ambition and Local Mediation
54
Figure 1: Purposes of Seoul Public Rental Housing
Source: Eun-Cheul Park (2015), Seoul’s Public Lease Housing Policy, Seoul Solution.
However, the proportion of public housing remains low compared to the OECD average of
8%: out of 3 million housing units in Seoul, 200.000 are leased through public rental housing
(6.67%), although there is a goal to bring the proportion up to 10% (SH Meeting, 14th January
2020). The construction and management of public housing is led by public enterprises at
the national and metropolitan level. 70% of public housing in Seoul is provided through
the Seoul Housing Corporation, a public company connected to the Seoul Metropolitan
Government, while the remaining 30% is provided by LH, which operates directly under
the central government (Park, 2015). While LH mainly carries out large-scale projects, SH
focuses mostly on small-scale projects within Seoul, including urban regeneration and the
provision of public housing through the purchase and renovation of empty or deteriorated
houses.
Figure 2: Types and Eligibility Criteria of Public Rental Housing in Seoul
Source: Kim Soo-Hyun (2014), Belated but Grand? the Future of Public Housing in Korea
2nd Part
55
The building of public housing in Korea entails a close cooperation between the public
and the private sector. For new development projects, the most common procedure is
the commissioned construction of housing units on publicly owned land. The question of
land is crucial because only 3% of the Korean territory is marked as housing land, and two
thirds of the land surface in Korea is privately held, either by individuals or by corporations
(LH Meeting, 17th January 2020). In order to commission the construction of new housing
units, public-owned corporations such as the Land and Housing Corporation (LH) first have
to acquire necessary land surface, which is particularly challenging in a city as dense as
Seoul. When public housing construction started in the 1990s, Korea’s urbanization rate
had already reached 74%, which is relatively late into the urbanization process compared to
other countries who have developed public housing programs (Kim, 2014). Land scarcity is
a recurrent problem hindering the expansion of the public housing stock, and as a result, a
large part of public housing units are built as part of large complexes on the city outskirts,
where land is more easily available. This is especially the case for housing targeting the
lowest-income groups such as permanent rental housing.
Due to a high urban density, until 2003 the provision of public housing in central areas had
been limited to redevelopment rental housing: by law, 20% of housing units in redevelopment
areas have to be allocated for public housing targeting former residents (Kim, 2014).
Redevelopment rental housing is a useful tool to include low and middle-income households
in urban renewal projects, however, not all former residents can be relocated on site and its
effects were overshadowed by the general rise in housing prices in those areas. To tackle
this issue and increase the provision of public housing in the inner city, in 2003 a new
form of public housing, called purchased rental housing for lease, was introduced. Through
these programmes, public housing companies can buy or rent private housing units in
more central areas of the city in order to renovate them and use them as public housing.
One of the objectives of purchased rental housing was to avoid spatial concentration of
public housing in large complexes, thereby enhancing social diversity. However, as of 2013,
purchased rental housing for lease only makes up 7.2% of the total public housing stock in
Seoul (Park, 2015).
According to the OECD (2018), Korea’s public housing market is largely disconnected from
the private rental market: despite the broadening of public housing programs to include
part of the middle-class, the Korean housing model remains overwhelmingly targeted to
households whose needs can’t be covered by the market. As such, Kim (2014) claims that
the public housing market can be qualified as a ‘residual dual market’ or a ‘dualist residual
market’. Despite public housing being the cornerstone of housing support for low-income
households, there are some public initiatives to support housing affordability in the private
rental market. The main one concerns publicly-provided low-interest loans for renting under
the Chonsei arrangement - a type of lease where, instead of monthly rent, the tenant makes
one lump-sum deposit which is refunded at the end of the lease. In addition, the government
covers the majority part of the housing costs for public housing. More recently, housing
vouchers have been introduced for low-income families housed in the private rental market.
A program of this kind, Seoul’s monthly rent assistance system, was first introduced at the
municipal level in 2002, and 23.300 households benefited between 2002 and 2010 (Jang,
2015). In 2015, a similar program was implemented at the national level, called the Housing
Voucher Program. Through these policies, the government offers other alternatives to public
rental housing and continues to enhance housing affordability for vulnerable social groups
and low-income households.
To sum up, the public sector-led housing policy in Korea has gone through a change from
the 1960s to nowadays. Before the 1990s, to address the housing pressure, the state
Global Ambition and Local Mediation
56
took an active role in stimulating the Korean real estate market through mass construction
of apartment complexes. Though it bridged the quantitative housing gap and eased the
housing stress, the low-income groups were left out from the policies because of the rising
housing price. Moving to the new century, the public sector of Seoul started to development
large-scale public housing programs to improve the housing conditions of low-income
families. Public housing in Korea entails a close cooperation between the public and the
private sector, with public-owned corporations like LH and SH playing central roles in the
construction and allocation of public housing units. New programs such as redeveloping
rental housing and purchased rental housing for lease were introduced to address the density
issue in SMA. In addition to the supply side, the government also introduced a housing
voucher policy for low-income families housed in the private rental market, so as to enhance
the housing affordability. Thus, Seoul’s housing market has witnessed a transformation of
the role of the public sector, from sponsoring property market to developing public housing
programs, and from a supply-focused scheme to a combination of both housing supply and
affordability.
2nd Part
57
REFERENCES
Chen, J., Man, Y., & Stephens, M. (2014). The Future of Public Housing: Ongoing trends in
the East and the West. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.
Choi, S., Choi, H., & Park, W. (2009). Affordable housing and local governance in south
korea: A fair share approach. International Journal of Urban Sciences, 13(2), 103-117.
Ha, S. (2010). Housing crises and policy transformations in south korea. International Journal
of Housing Policy: Changing Housing Policy Landscapes in Asia Pacific, 10(3), 255-272.
Jang, Y. (2015). Seoul housing policy.
Joo, & Yu-Min. (2019). Megacity Seoul. Milton: Routledge Ltd.
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Kim, S. (2014). Belated but grand? the future of public housing in korea. City, Culture and
Society, 5(2), 97-105.
Kyung-Hwan Kim. (1993). Housing Prices, Affordability, and Government Policy in Korea.
Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics.
Lee, H., & Ronald, R. (2012). Expansion, diversification, and hybridization in korean public
housing. Housing Studies: Social Enterprise, Hybridity and Housing Organisations, 27(4),
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Park, E. (2015). Seoul’s public lease housing policy.
Park, E. (2015). Seoul Type Housing Boucher Program.
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Seoul, Korea: Seoul Housing & Communities Corporation.
Seong-Kyu Ha. (2010). Housing Crises and Policy Transformations in South Korea,
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Global Ambition and Local Mediation
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THE ROLE OF CHAEBOLS IN SEOUL’S URBAN PLANNING AND REGENERATION
By Azilis Pierrel & Anne-Sophie Tchuisseu
The urban regimes of contemporary Korea can scarcely be understood in the absence of an
analysis of a particular institutional arrangement: the Chaebols. Chaebols are family-owned
conglomerates of business groups that played a critical role in the influence and emergence
of South Korea as a major global power, and by extension, Seoul as a “global city” (Sassen,
1999). Some of the major ones include LG Electronics, Lotte, Samsung, Hyundai etc, and all
their subsidiaries. After the Asian financial crisis of 1997, some of the chaebols disappeared
because of their high indebtedness. However, their place in the Korean economy is still
crucial as the top five of chaebols represent 50% of the South Korean stock exchange
market, something that structures their relationship with the government. The superpower
(the 10 biggest chaebols represent almost 50% of the South Korean GDP in 2018)1 of the
chaebols means that the state cannot afford to see them collapse, a seemingly Korean
equivalent of the logic of ‘too big to fail’ that has emerged in years since the 2008 financial
crisis in Western economies (Chang, 2014). There is therefore an omnipresence of the
chaebols but also a strong dependence on the state. The chaebols have a strong influence
on political life that has been particularly pronounced in the wake of the crisis. The unofficial
relations between the families of high-ranking officials and politicians and the families at the
head of conglomerates are often at the root of many scandals that have broken out over
the last decade. These relationships have a strong impact both politically and strategically
and create a sense of social and economic injustice among the population. The aim of this
paper is to explain the influence of the chaebols on urban governance, especially in the
metropolis of Seoul that concentrates the majority of the South Korean population and GDP.
It seeks to unpack to what extent the actions of chaebols shape Seoul’s urban landscape
and regeneration.
The Corporatization of City Making
Chaebols have been present in the construction of South Korea both literally and figuratively
since the “construction” of the country from the end of the Second World War. However,
it was under the presidency of Park Chung-hee (1963-1979) that a close link was created
between the government, business and urban development. Chaebols benefited from
South Korea’s developmentalist policy of the 1960s. Park Chung-hee’s military coup in
1961 marked the beginning of a policy of a state that had invested heavily in the physical
infrastructure necessary to sustain the Korean economy. With the Establishment of the
Economic Planning Board and the creation of Five-Year Economic Development Plans,
the state began to direct investment towards selective industrialization in a forceful, stepby-step manner. The introduction of low-interest loans and disciplinary measures initially
promoted different industries and selected the driving forces of the national industrialization
policy (Joo, 2018).
The developmental state thus sought to promote an economically driven urban development
and selected huge national players, the chaebols, to help realise its industrial and urban
policies. President Park openly encouraged the Chaebols to seize economic power in
exchange for their participation in rebuilding the country. These large conglomerates
therefore benefitted from particularly low interest rates, relaxation from regulation and tax
cuts, but also financial subsidies, a fixed wage system, cheap electricity and the end of trade
1
https://pulsenews.co.kr/view.php?year=2018&no=562268
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unions. Thus, chaebols are at the heart of strategic urban choices, through their involvement
in national industrial policy and associated urban development.
In the 1970s, the “Republic of the Chaebols” experienced a certain retreat with the
privatization of the financial sector at the national level (Kim, 1997). The democratic regime
no longer supports the chaebols through national industrialization policies combined with
large-scale urban projects. The Federal government began to turn into a “property state”,
as defined by Haila (2000), with a strategy aimed at guiding capital and enterprises towards
investment in real estate. With the industrial circuit experiencing a downturn, chaebols
moved their capital towards the built environment and investing in properties. The State
helped facilitate these new avenues of revenue, in particular by launching national affordable
housing projects, led with the partnership of chaebols. This change in policy was inherently
market-oriented since it was no longer based on national industrial objectives, and therefore
reduced the role of government regulation.
This urban development carried out in conjunction with the chaebols, responsible for
construction, financing and strategic choices, is sometimes described as “chaebol
urbanism” (Douglass, 2015). Supplying mass housing units in a quantitative logic is
becoming a strategy for chaebols. The medium and high-rise apartments, pursued by the
rising Korean middle class, is one of the main business areas today for chaebols. They have
often set up subsidiaries to build and sell new units. For example, the Hyundai Engineering
and Construction Co. has been responsible for the construction of whole apartments in the
Gangnam neighborhood since the 1970s. Although the relationship between the chaebols
and the State has evolved, it has followed a boomerang movement (Kalinowski, 2009).
This proximity between state projects and chaebols is described as a ‘path dependency’
facilitating virtual monopolies in the housing market.
The Role of Chaebols in Shaping the Contemporary City
Urban projects driven by the State through public-private partnerships with the chaebols
take the form of megaprojects that tackle entire neighbourhoods at a time. Through the
establishment of massive plans at the national level, it enables projects with a technology
tackling entire urban fragments for residential purposes. Urban development is rapid and
vertical, with large-scale apartments for the Korean middle class seeking housing. These
projects are both government and chaebol initiated, however most observers have noted
that the chaebols retain great power in many domains from financing to finally achieving an
operation.
The chaebol model involves developing land from a core area and then expanding. As
Douglass (2015 notes: “chaebol intrusions into Seoul mimic a feudal pattern of dividing
territory into fiefs, each dominated by a specific chaebol”. We can observe territorial divisions
of Seoul shaped to the domination of specific chaebols. Examples of this include Lotte’s
impact on Jamsil-dong with the construction of the Lotte World Tower (556 meter high) that
is part of a huge complex including apartments, stores, business offices. For its part, LG
occupies more than 1,7 million square meter in the Magok District. Samsung played a role
in the redevelopment of the rich District of Gangnam and plans a tower in the Seoul Digital
Media City in Sangnam-dong. Investment in buildings in addition to economic activities such
as telephones and cars has led the chaebols to diversify and acquire a territorial base within
the capital itself but also in secondary cities such as Ulsan.
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Participation, Gentrification and the Move Towards New Exclusionary Geographies
Metropolises face housing problems, and Seoul is no exception. To meet the growing
demand for housing, the Seoul government has been carrying out mass renovations since
the early 1960s. Redevelopment efforts have been concentrated on older built-up areas
characterized by low density and high land prices. Two methods were used: the first was to
eliminate substandard housing in certain critical areas and relocate its occupants to suburbs,
with this being done within the framework of a development plan and with funding decided
by the government without the participation of residents. The second was the improvement
of housing by residents with minimal government intervention. Both methods did not have
the expected results. In the first case, the methods used were strongly criticized because
of the brutality with which the government treated the populations of these neighborhoods.
The renovation project by the inhabitants themselves suffered from their passivity in the
absence of coercive measures and financial support from the authorities. It is because of
this double failure that a method inspired by public-private partnerships was favored. Once
the project to be renovated has been chosen by the municipality a company must agree
to participate. The companies participating in renovation projects are often chaebols that
also have branches in construction. Within the framework of the renovation projects an
association of inhabitants is created. The role of the association is to have the approval of
most of the inhabitants so that the project can start. Based on this initial approval, each
inhabitant receives the right to own a dwelling once the renovation is completed. As it is
understood from the outset that the construction company may build more dwellings than
are necessary to house all the inhabitants, it is allowed to sell the additional dwellings on
the real estate market to cover the construction costs of the renovation project. In this
way, municipal authorities are not obliged to use their limited financial resources to improve
deprived neighborhoods.
Nevertheless, there are many drawbacks to this kind of partnership. The main one is that the
housing sharing agreed between the residents’ association and the construction company
is not often respected. The creation of the residents’ association is not always based on
consensus of all residents. Associations sometimes find themselves manipulated by a small
number acting to protect and grow their real estate interests. As a result, even if most of the
inhabitants are dissatisfied with the agreement with the chaebol, the renovation project still
goes ahead. This has important socio-economic consequences. Indeed, the neighborhoods
being renovated are working class, and households with low incomes are no longer able to
live in their original neighborhoods because the cost of living increases considerably. One of
the direct consequences of these renovations will be the gentrification of Seoul’s workingclass neighborhoods. The less advantaged inhabitants will be forced to move away and
lose their jobs because they can no longer find housing close to their jobs. The renovations
will therefore also have the impact of destroying the social identity of certain neighborhoods
which are deprived of their inhabitants and their traditional local jobs. The Seoul municipality
has chosen to set up public-private partnerships, most often with chaebols, which means
that the city council does not have to finance these renovation projects. However, the
pressure exerted by the chaebols and the passivity of the Seoul government is leading to
profound changes in the concerned districts.
Conclusion
The Chaebols have played and continue to play a role in the construction of the Seoul
metropolitan area. The role of the Chaebols is far more extensive than the trace they leave
on the Korean urban territories. The presence of Chaebols in the city tends to reinforce its
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economic weight and thus, at some point, its influence. Chaebols are today an integral part
of Korean culture. They have had an impact on corporate culture, for example, and are very
often at the heart of TV series (dramas) known to be a vector of Korean culture throughout
the world. Chaebols are therefore omnipresent and are actors of hard power (economic
weight) but also of soft power (drama, tourist sites, ex: Lotte Tower, Seoul).
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REFERENCES
Chang, J.H. (2014) ‘Bloomberg, “the sales of Korea’s top ten chaebols reached 84% of GDP”’, CEO
Score Daily, 3 February. Available from: www.ceoscoredaily.com/news/
article.html?no=4961 [30 June 2018].
Douglass, M. (2015). Creative communities and the cultural economy — Insadong, chaebol urbanism
and the local state in Seoul. Cities. 56. 10.1016/j.cities.2015.09.007.
Haila, A. (2000). ‘Real estate in global cities: Singapore and Hong Kong as property states’, Urban
Studies, vol. 37, no. 12, pp. 2241–2256.
Joo, Y. (2018). Megacity Seoul: Urbanization and the Development of Modern South Korea. Routledge.
Pp. 156.
Kalinowski, T. (2009) The politics of market reforms: Korea’s path from Chaebol Republic to market
democracy and back, Contemporary Politics, 15:3, 287-304, DOI: 10.1080/13569770903118770
Kim, E.M. (1997). Big business, strong state: Collusion and conflict in South Korean development,
1960–1990. State University of New York Press, Albany
Sassen, S. (1991). The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton University Press, Princeton,
New Jersey.
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63
SEOUL´S PARTICIPATIVE URBAN GOVERNANCE
By Francesca Bonalda, Gabriella Costa & Lina Homman Ludiye
Digital education and social innovation as an instrument for civil participation
Seoul’s recent history has been characterized by branding efforts to create an attractive
image of itself as one of Asia’s economic powerhouses. These efforts intensely advertise
the city’s achievements in its rapid economic development, modernity, and technology, and
are eager to promote their image as an important global player (Berg & Björner, 2014;
Karvelyte & Chiu, 2011). Former mayors Lee Myung-bak (2002–2006) and Mayor Oh-hoon
(2006–2011) both used branding strategies which prioritized upgrading and transforming
Seoul’s image as a competitive Asian global city. The development and implementation of
these strategies mostly took place among government and private-sector experts, and they
almost entirely targeted external audiences. They relied on top-down approaches to bring
fast developments (Cho, 2011). However, in 2011, Park Won Soon won the election after
then-Mayor Oh-hoon’s resignation, changing the political trajectory of municipal policy. This
election symbolized the defeat of conservative political forces which, up until that point, had
been the dominant political power in South Korea. Park Won Soon was a former lawyer and
a longtime human rights and social activist, and did not belong to any political party—highly
unusual, given Korea’s strong political party system. He built his political power and support
around the idea of a need for a paradigm shift in response to Seoul’s overall fatigue with
growth-first ideologies, subsequent social inequalities, and class divisions.
Currently, the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) is comprised of 25 autonomous districts
and 24 affiliated agencies. These agencies are managed on a public-private partnership basis
and cooperate to find solutions for urban problems from a citizen-centered perspective.
This article aims to analyze the participative approach of Seoul´s urban governance at the
municipal level, especially in light of the relatively recent political shift brought on by Mayor
Park’s election. The first part will be more contextual in its approach, laying out the historical
processes that have taken place since 2000 to lead Seoul from a growth-minded state to
a more participatory one. The second part will examine two case studies–the Seoul Digital
Foundation, and the Fab Lab–to demonstrate good examples of how such participatory
policy is put into place at the ground level. The argument of this article is that city branding,
as well as the participatory approach it encourages, have a transformative function - they
serve as an instrument to support a change in the government’s policy.
I. Contextualizing the shift towards a participatory model
With the inauguration of Mayor Park Won-soon, Seoul saw a major shift in its approach
which rejected the neoliberal and growth-centered perspective; this shift heavily contrasts
the approach to city branding, which focuses on promoting a city’s competitive assets
dictated by public–private partnerships, with little citizen involvement. An example of the
former, Seoul’s branding practices accelerated under Mayor Lee Myung-bak1 (2002–2006)
sought to apply the private sector’s efficient marketing strategies to the public sector (Kang,
2004). Similarly, Seoul’s ambition to brand itself as a global city peaked under Mayor Oh
Se-hoon (2006– 2011): Oh’s signature policy was that of the ‘‘design city’’ policy, in which
significant financial resources were devoted to “creating the image of a global city through
‘design’” (Interview with member of SMG, August 2015). Mayor Oh’s strategy was to apply
1
Notably also a former CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction.
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concrete numbers to the city’s branding strategy, declaring that Seoul’s brand should
become among the top 10 most competent globally and that the city was aiming to increase
the number of tourists to 12 million a year (Kim & Lee, 2012). The branding strategies
of both Mayors Lee (2002–2006) and Oh (2006–2011) targeted external audiences and
prioritized upgrading and transforming Seoul’s image as a competitive Asian global city to
the international market. The development and implementation of these strategies took place
behind closed doors; they did not emphasize communication with internal audiences (Cho,
2011) and seldom engaged the public. Both mayors’ branding projects appeared similar to
the “growth-first” strategies that had previously shaped Seoul’s development and reflected
a push towards the postindustrial transformation of Seoul into an attractive global city. At
the root of these branding exercises were indirect continuations of the previous regimes’
ideologies, strategies, and processes of pursuing economic growth and competitiveness
on the global market.
The paradigm introduced by Mayor Park Won-soon presented a strong bottom-up
contribution, allowing for diverse views and pursuit of a more socially progressive path.
Local residents and stakeholders were seen at last as co-producers of a place rather than
as consumers (Hankinson, 2004; Houghton & Stevens, 2011; Klijn & Koppenjan, 2012;
Zenker & Erfgen, 2014). Local residents are those most affected by a city’s transformative
branding measures and for this reason the process of place reinvention began to be
developed as a “demand-oriented process in which the input from local citizens has a key
role” (Olsson & Berglund, 2009). Local residents legitimize and facilitate the transformative
efforts; branding is now an interactive process that brings together the government and
the general public in both decision-making as well as in implementation and re-creation.
This implies a deeply engaged public and attention for bottom-up interests as opposed to
participation as a formality. Transforming the established semiotic and economic production
of a place, along with its governance and underlying ideology, is far from straightforward. It
involves continuous and multiple processes of assemblage and construction that are both
planned and contingent, and are inherently political.
City branding and the participatory approach it encourages have a transformative function:
they serve as instruments to support a turn in the government’s policy. City branding has,
in this perspective, a double role: it is both a political project of policy change and used by
the local government in an effort to bring about a new policy paradigm of citizen-centered
governance. Thus, city branding becomes as instrumental in the policy paradigm shift as a
process and not an outcome. With the election of Mayor Park Won-soon, different layers of
transformation took place: the city branding exercise has been transformed in its strategies,
goals, and in its overarching ideology. Seoul transformed its identity in a way that resonated
better with local residents. While there is a need for strong internal branding to provide
a meaningful identity of a place to its residents, the mayor acts as a key agent of policy
paradigm shift, which in turn can be reflected and elevated by city branding.
II. Case Studies
Case Study #1: Seoul Digital Foundation (SDF)
An understanding of this first case study needs to be contextualized within is financial
processes, as laid out by the Global Digital Seoul 2020 Plan. Launched in 2016, the Global
Digital Seoul 2020 “Diginomics” Plan laid out Seoul’s digital strategy for transforming the
city into one of the world’s leading e-Governments. Since then, thanks to a public-private
partnership between the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) and private investors, the
project has received over $245 million USD in investments. As stated in “Global Digital Seoul
2020 - New Connections, Different Experiences”, the SMG intends to enhance economic
growth, establish demanded infrastructure, and engage citizens into the policymaking
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process through digital technology. Mayor Park Won-soon declared in 2016:
“Using digital techniques, most policies will be established by citizens, the beneficiaries of
public digital service with an aim to make our city one of the world’s leading digital capitol by
2020. Plus, through a new digital industry, our city will create jobs, which will stimulate the
economy, and solve various urban problems”.
Undoubtedly, the question of empowering citizens in the urban policy making process comes
up as one of the major objectives of Seoul’s digital strategy. The Seoul Digital Foundation
(SDF) is a clear example of this new dedication. Created in May 2016 as a think tank, the
SDF is tasked with the responsibility of fostering the digital economy, solving urban issues
through innovative technologies, and developing and facilitating digital literacy education for
residents of Seoul to empower them to participate in the policymaking process.
A cornerstone of the Seoul Digital Foundation is open communication with
citizenry to involve them in decision-making processes, using digital tools as means of
reinforcing the importance of technology in the cities of today. The City Hall receives online
and offline inhabitants’ opinions to facilitate public hearings, which result in not only a large
compendium of public concern and comments in regards to municipal issues, but also
some proposed solutions as well. Public authorities understand now, more than ever, the
potential for civic intervention in the policymaking process. In this context, the Seoul Digital
Foundation was created to help citizens understand their role in the resolution of urban
problems. The Seoul Digital Foundation has two primary goals for its civic digital policy:
education and empowerment.
The education aspect was introduced after a realization that citizens themselves often had
knowledgeability and ideas to solve problems faced in the urban sphere, but not necessarily
the tools for bringing such ideas to fruition. SDF organizes workshops in public schools and
local community groups with the objective to introduce inhabitants to digital tools. Once the
digital tools are better understood by citizens, they could use the skills acquired to create
Figure 1: Goals of Global Digital Seoul 2020 Strategy. Source: Seoul Metropolitan
Government Official Website
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66
their own applications and digital tools based on their ideas. This procedure of empowerment
directly involved inhabitants into the governance processes of the city, allowing them access
to comprehensive facilities and programs designed by and for inhabitants. The SDF also
created a platform where these ideas could be shared and shaped. Because of a large
variety in the scale of problems tackled, those which did not fit the city’s immediate need or
scope are stored in a data base to by analyzed by the SDF think tank.
The SDF’s think tank is a fundamental instrument to better understand the new urban context
with the massive arrival of digital technology. In particular, there is a growing demand for new
policies regarding both the security of information and economic regulation. Regarding the
former, projects such as CCTV installation throughout the city and the creation of a big
data campus demand new policies for the maintenance of individual right to privacy. The
emergence of new economic structures, along with the emergence of shared economy,
online-to-online commerce (O2O), and expansion of industries based on new digital
technologies, have forced policy makers to also seek ways of avoiding violations of common
interests. The SDF operates using data provided by public authorities, citizens, and the
private sector and collaborates with academic institutions to promote research surrounding
public policy analysis and production. Their actions are also organized in coordination with
10 other think tanks involved in public policy analysis world-wide, such as the Instituto
Brasileiro De Cidades Inteligentes, Humanas E Sustentáveis in Brazil and Open & Agile
Smart Cities in Belgium. The international alliances are created and maintained through the
promotion and participation of international events such as the Smart Seoul Conferences,
the Hackathon with United Nations Innovation Challenge and the Global Digital Innovation
Alliance. Such relationships solidify the SDF’s commitment to connecting local innovation
with global connectivity.
Case Study #2: The Fab Lab
The Seoul Innovation Park opened at Eun Pyeong-gu in April 2015, built on vacant land
formerly used by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. As described by the Fab Lab
founder, the unoccupied area represented a great opportunity to build a sense of community
and renew urban governance and participation modes. The aim of the Innovation Park in
Seoul is to bring together people and ideas to solve social issues, in the variety of different
functional spaces built together in an extended complex. The implementation of the Seoul
Innovation Park has largely been supported by the SMG as a way to bring citizens and
innovators together and to implement experimental and innovative processes to resolve
issues of inequality, injustice, and imbalance.
The Innovation Park is divided into different sectors, each of them targeting different fields of
activity. The park has a variety of “working places” such as offices and co-working spaces
where citizens can meet and work together in a traditional setting. There are also a range of
“specialized places”, such as the Fab Lab, an exhibition space, an upcycling park, a woodworking space, and a theater venue. These spaces are meant to cultivate specific skills
and help people learn through a variety of mediums through workshops and events. The
Innovation Park also includes outdoor spaces, the Seoul Metropolitan archives, and cultural
facilities to supplement the focus on technological innovation.
The Seoul Innovation Fab Lab, a “digital Fabrication Laboratory”, is a recent addition to
the international community of Fab Labs (comprised of a network of over 1,700 Fab Labs
spread across 100 countries worldwide), which aims to build a sense of community and
cultivate creativity and technical prowess. The global community gathers fabricators,
innovators, artists, scientists, engineers, educators, students, amateurs and professionals
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Figure 2: Spaces of Seoul Innovation Park
Source : Seoul Innovation Park Tour Guide, october 2016
around educational programs and digital fabrication services.
The “Fab culture” is primarily oriented around public education and citizen empowerment
through technological innovation. Indeed, one of the main objectives of Fab Labs is to
develop and enhance the public’s agency. Like other Fab Labs, Seoul’s features a wide range
of digital equipment and machines to allow individuals to experiment and create (almost)
anything they would like. The aim of the Fab Lab is also to cultivate confidence within
community members in their own practical skills and abilities, as well as to create a broad
social network that can foster an experimentation and creative dynamism. It plays the role
of an innovative incubator, aiming to bring people together and raise social consciousness
of what can be made at an individual level. Thus, the Fab Lab has intrinsically become a tool
for improving participation of civic groups in policy making process.
In order to solve social problems, the Fab Lab supports collaboration and invention among
local residents. It offers time slots and workshops for people to come and create together,
equipment and machinery for the production process, and staff members to advise and
supervise projects. The Seoul Innovation Center also includes the “Fab Academy”, which
offers content sharing among all Fab Labs part of the community and videos for interactive
classes. As such, the Fab Lab in the Seoul Innovation Center serves as a tool to directly
connect citizenry with the decision-making and problem-solving processes of local urban
governance in Seoul.
Conclusion
The strategies to transform Seoul’s image as a competitive global city have been promoted
since 2002. Since then, and until 2011, the two conservative mayors of the city, Lee
Myung-bak (2002-2006) and Mayor Oh Se-hoon (2006–2011), reinforced public-private
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68
partnerships and a top-down approach to realize this strategy. The city’s competitive assets
dictated without much citizen involvement. Thereby, the election of Park Won Soon in 2011
represented a turnover to defeat of the conservative party and the regain of a stronger,
more bottom-up approach to decision-making processes. A more socially progressive
path was followed with the election of Mayor Park Won-soon, which rejected the growthcentered perspective and instead tried to more actively engage citizen participation. Local
residents and stakeholders are seen as co-producers of a place rather than consumers. In
this context, public policies and investments started to take place to improve the citizens’
knowledgeability and participation in the urban fabric of Seoul. The Global Digital Seoul
2020 Plan and the Seoul Innovation Park are examples of these new public and private
interventions, and the Seoul Digital Foundation and the Fab Lab are the respective ground
results. Even if their impact in the urban fabric is hard to measure since they are young
initiatives, they form a concrete part of Seoul’s participative governance system.
Figure 3: Robotic Arms
Source: Seoul Innovation Park website, https://en.innovationpark.kr/project-2017/
If Seoul’s metropolitan governance has been characterized, up until the early 2010s, by
a desire to reach an international audience, the internal initiative such as the Seoul Digital
Foundation and Fab Lab nonetheless show that those roots still exist in Seoul’s foundations.
Both effectively tap into the local community, as well as global networks. If nothing else,
this represents a fundamental dedication to the “glocalization” and connectivity of Seoul’s
municipal governance on a variety of scales. It may be too soon to tell if the government has
struck the right balance between global branding and local engagement, but the results as
of now remain highly promising for both the municipality and the residents.
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REFERENCES
Berg, P., & Björner, E. (Eds.). (2014). Branding Chinese Mega-Cities: Policies,
Practices and Positioning. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing. doi:https://doi.
org/10.4337/9781783470334.00002
Cho, MR (2011) Evaluation of Lee, Myung-bak and Oh, Se-hoon administrations and the
qualifications for the new mayor. People and Policy 3: 50–66.
“Fab Academy 2020”. innofablab.kr, Web. 21st April 2020, <innofablab.kr/fabacademy-2020>
Hankinson, G. (2004) Relational network brands: Towards a conceptual model of place
brands. Journal of Vacation Marketing 10 (2): 109–121.
Houghton J.P., Stevens A. (2011) City Branding and Stakeholder Engagement. In: Dinnie K.
(eds) City Branding. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230294790_6
Karvelyte, K., & Chiu, J.-H. (2011). Planning process of city brands: A case study of Taipei
City. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 7(4), 257–270. https://doi.org/10.1057/
pb.2011.26
Klijn, E.-H., & Koppenjan, J. (2012). Governance network theory: past, present and future.
Policy & Politics, 40(4), 587–606. https://doi.org/10.1332/030557312x655431
Kim, S., & Lee, J. (2012). E-Participation, Transparency, and Trust in Local Government.
Public
Administration Review, 72(6), 819–828. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2012.02593.x
Olsson, K., & Berglund, E. (2009). City Marketing: The Role of Citizens. In T. Nyseth & A.
Viken (Eds.), Place Reinvention: Northern Perspectives (pp. 127–144). Ashgate Publishing
Ltd.
“Seoul launches ‘Global Digital Seoul 2020”. Seoul.go.kr, Web 21st April 2020 <http://
english.seoul.go.kr/seoul-launches-global-digital-seoul-2020/>
“Technology based social innovation project teams”. Innovation park.kr, Web. 21st April
2020 <https://en.innovationpark.kr/project-2017/>
Zenker, S. and Erfgen, C. (2014), “Let them do the work: a participatory place branding
approach”, Journal of Place Management and Development, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 225-234.
Future of Seoul, drawn digitally. Seoul Digital Foundation, Jan. 2020
Global Ambition and Local Mediation
© Photo: “Copy-paste”. Seoul 2020. Alexandra van Milink.
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3
URBAN CHANGE
“SEOUL STYLE”
THE CONTEMPORARY
GOVERNANCE OF THE BUILT
E N V I R O N M E N T
72
UNDERSTANDING THE TRANSFORMATION OF A LANDFILL INTO AN
ECOLOGICAL PARK THROUGH THE MULTIPLE STREAM ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK:
THE CASE OF NANJIDO ISLAND, SEOUL
By Emma Raiga-Clemenceau & Julia Manien
Introduction
From 1978 to 1993 the Nanjido Island, located in central Seoul along the Han River, was
used as the city’s dumpsite. Over the years, more than 90 million m3 of garbage were
accumulated. Besides domestic waste, which covered 65% of the area, the island was used
to store the city’s construction materials since the strategic location served the numerous
condominium and new town building sites in and around the metropolitan area. Moreover,
the island was inhabited by the most socially vulnerable groups that make a living collecting
recyclable materials. Despite the rich history, a walk through the island today does not tell
you about the historical functions of this place. Starting from the ‘90s, indeed, the landfill
was transformed into a well-designed ecological World Cup Park built to commemorate the
2002 Korean-Japan World Cup Games.
Analysing the policy streams that led to the transformation of the island, it can be argued
that the newly designed World Cup Park perfectly reflects the political shift towards the
market logic and entrepreneurial approach that Seoul experienced entering the 21st century.
Starting from the ‘90s, indeed, under a double process of liberalization and decentralization
(Joo, 2018) the Korean capital-focused its resources to fuel projects of regeneration of sites
that embodied the ill effects of the urbanization and industrialization. In the case of the World
Cup Park, the “success story” of the transformation of the Nanjido Island landfill into an ecofriendly park, urban regeneration is associated to and depends on what the SMG describes
as an ecological regeneration of the space.
The project was controlled and funded completely by the Seoul Metropolitan Government
(SMG) which directly spent more than the 220 billion won (Seoul Metropolitan Government,
2015). Even though the design of the park required public-private partnerships, and the
monitoring was assisted by groups of citizens, SMG has remained at the heart of the park’s
governance. More practically, the project was implemented in two distinctive phases. Firstly,
from January 1998 to October 2002, the stabilization of the landfill was launched, consisting
notably of a leachate treatment and the extraction and recycling of the gas generated by
the garbage. Secondly, from October 2000 to June 2002, the work was focused on the
construction of the ecological park over the land.
The 2002 FIFA World Cup was the megaevent that framed the narrative around the project
of the park. However, the World Cup Park can be seen as a strategic spark for a more
ambitious urban and regional development. Beyond the merely social and ecological
rehabilitation of the Nanjido Island, the park was conceived aiming to shape the Sangam
area where the World Cup Stadium is located. More precisely, the ecological park was
devised as a showcase project in order to launch the branding image of a “green” developing
neighbourhood, namely the Sangam eco-city.
The following article analyses at the window of opportunity that led to the design and
the implementation of the World Cup Park using the Kingdon’s multiple stream analysis
framework (1984). In order to understand a “policy window” the convergence of three
streams, namely problem, policy, and politics, has to be investigated. The transformation
of the landfill was initiated in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when sufficient attention was
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Figure 1: Sangam New Millennium Town Master Plan
Source : Seoul’s Digital Media City (DMC), SeoulSolution Policies.
given to the landfill – categorized as a “problem” in a time of crisis for Seoul, while also
symbolizing the decay of the property-based developmental approach. Moreover, solutions
to transform the site had to become available and feasible. After discussing a wide array
of plans to remove the waste, the landfill stabilization and the construction of a park over
the garbage was the solution negotiated between many actors with different interests
and resources. Policymakers also had the reason to support the project. The project of a
publicly accessible environmental-friendly open space was coherent with the goal of tackling
inequalities that emerged during the Asian Financial Crisis and of building a modern and
exportable world-class urban centre.
The Problem Stream
Problems do not naturally exist, they are the result of a process of issue framing (Kingdom,
1984). Policy issues have to be recognized as such by policymakers and they have to be
considered as deserving their attention to becoming “problems”. Considering that there
are no objective tools to identify which issues deserve policymakers’ focus, and that only
a small share manages to receive sufficient attention, the way and the context in which
these issues are framed as problems are central. This is demonstrated by the problem
stream that led to the transformation of Najido Island. While it was used from the end of the
1970s onwards, it was only recognized as a problem later in the ‘90s. During this period it
was considered an anachronistic infrastructure for a city that aimed to be a global city with
a post-industrial economy. Afterward the island was framed as an opportunity to serve a
megaevent and the development of a neighbourhood. Eventually, the area was deemed a
social and environmental issue.
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Figure 2: Park Plan
Source : Sustainable Urbanism in Seoul, arcgis.com esri.
It is firstly important to underline that the landfill started to receive policyan makers’ attention
in a period of national crisis. Along with the immediate economic and social shocks, the
Asian Financial Crisis marked a historical moment in the quick development of South Korea.
South Korea realized it had to move from a property-based development towards a new
post-industrial economic model. In this context, the landfill was seen as a negative effect of
the rapid population growth, fast urbanization, and industrialization of Seoul. The site was
considered as something of the past, an inheritance that hindered the development of a new
post-industrial city.
Secondly, the landfill site began to represent an opportunity to answer the infrastructural
and land demand due to the upcoming 2002 FIFA World Cup that would both take place in
South Korea and in Japan. Transforming the landfill into a World Cup Park was therefore a
way to solve logistical problems induced by the organization of the World Cup, with a longerterm perspective to transform Seoul into a global city hosting megaevents, in line with its
transition to become a post-industrial city.
Finally, the use of Nanjido Island as a landfill site started to be framed as an environmental
and social issues. Beyond the risk of slope collapse, waste degradation was generating
leachate, odour and harmful gas that were deteriorating the surrounding ecosystem.
These two points were progressively categorized as safety and health problems. Moreover,
growing attention was further directed to the landfill as the area became predominantly
home to the urban poor. Handling these issues was in coherence with branding Seoul as an
environmentally and socially sustainable city.
The Policy Stream
According to the multiple stream theory, the pace at which problems arise and fall on the
agenda is relatively quick compared to the time necessary to design a solution. Therefore,
most of the time solutions are already available before the situation is recognized as a
“problem”. Thus, these solutions must be exploited at the right time, as the attention given
to a problem is volatile.
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Looking at the World Cup Park project, it appears that solutions were pre-existing to the
recognition of the landfill as a “problem”. Solutions were in fact already discussed at the
beginning of the 1990s, as the City of Seoul began studies to craft future management
measures as early as 1991, even though the landfill continued to be used until 1993. During
this period, different processes and plans were reviewed, and it was concluded that the best
solution would be to “maintain the current state, to begin environmental pollution prevention
and stabilization work, and to defer its use for the future” (Seoul Metropolitan Government,
The Seoul Institute, 2014).
The second criterion is the value acceptability of the solution, as it has to be approved within
the political community to be sufficiently supported. Transforming the landfill into a park was
part of a wider set of environmental pollution prevention projects and waste management
policy. This allowed the World Cup Park project to be perceived as only a component of
a wider environmental-friendly project rather than an infrastructural intervention to favour
the upcoming World Cup Games. Moreover, the Nanjido Ecological Park has a set of
comprehensive resource recycling functions, with a resources recollection facility, a distinct
heating facility, a leachate treatment plant, and a landfill gas collecting facility enabling the
collected gas to be used as regional heating fuel. As a result, the value acceptability of the
project was guaranteed by the fact that it was presented as a solution that would restore the
site’s ecosystem, mitigate pollution while not having to move the tons of garbage - turning
an abandoned land into an environmentally friendly park.
Furthermore, the selection of a solution depends on its tolerable anticipated cost. Turning
the landfill into a park was economically more advantageous, as removing the waste would
require huge expenses. Moreover, even though it would not allow direct use of the land as a
construction site (for domestic housing contractors or businesses for instance), it would still
be a profitable solution as it would be central to the hosting of the World Cup, and would
directly contribute to the urban restoration of the area. The project indeed contributed to the
transformation of Sangam in a new town development, responding to the city’s land needs
following its fast urbanization.
The Politics Stream
Besides the rising understanding of the landfill as a multifaced problem and the emersion of
a feasible solution, it is important to also look at the “politics stream” in order to understand
how the project of the park reached the opportunity of the implementation. The third
analysed stream focuses on the receptivity of the society to certain solutions at particular
times. More precisely, the “politics stream” sheds light on economic, social, and cultural
factors understanding how they influence the capacity of interest groups to support a given
policy.
The end of the 1990s was marked by Seoul’s efforts to recover from the Asian Financial
Crisis and to pay back its loan from the IMF. This resulted in massive public investments
directed to ameliorate the built environment in order to rebrand Seoul as a global city and to
eventually attract investments. The World Cup Park is an example of this strategy. The park
was indeed entirely paid from the ordinary budget of the city, amounting to a cost of 223
billion wons. The public expenditure was justified in the context of the World Cup. Moreover,
it was part of the city’s effort to mitigate the recession.
The beginning of the 21st century, moreover, represented a new era for the city of Seoul, an
opportunity for the city to grow and reap the benefits of hosting such a colossal event as the
World Cup. Investing in the construction of an ecological park cannot be dissociated from
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76
the fact that Seoul was hosting the event: it served as a stimulus for the establishment of
the park in such a short period of time. The project of an ecological park built for the World
Cup is not politically neutral, nor an idea born out of nowhere in Seoul. Looking back at the
previous world events hosted in metropolises around the world, the concept of ecologically
friendly events was recent but not new at the time. The 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympic
Games in Norway were indeed the first Olympics to integrate environmental issues into
the organization of the games. They were followed by the 2000 Sydney Olympic, today
remembered as the “green Olympics”, in light of the restoration of the Homebush Bay Area
- also a landfill site restored in order to build the stadium on top of it.
This period was also one where policy entrepreneurs promoted a new vision and economic
model for the city, as a post-industrial world-class metropolis, with strong environmental
policies and exportable solutions worldwide. The park was in fact framed by the SMG as a
symbolic site, one where nature could reborn and coexist with human culture. The language
used to promote the project is charged with the city’s desire to overtake the industrialization
approach by welcoming nature once again.
The park was not an isolated project, but at the heart of the larger plan of the Sangam new
town carried out from August 1998 to May 2000, the core project supported by Seoul’s
mayor at the time, Goh Kun. Sangam was to be the new sub-centre of the metropolis, in
which residences, traffic systems, hi-tech industries would harmonize with the preservation
of the environment. The World Cup Park was presented within this plan, supported by the
strong political will of Goh Kun, as a green public space on the backdrop of the Sangam new
town, therefore a core project to help foster Sangam into an eco-city.
Finally, we cannot fully understand the success of this policy without positioning Seoul in
the context of world-class cities making (Roy and Ong, 2011). To achieve the status of a
world city and transition from post-industrialization, primary cities are incited to compete
with megaprojects, in order to attract an affluent creative class keen to live in greener cities
and other forms of investments. The World Cup was in fact a major opportunity for the city
to capitalize on spectacular urban projects such as the innovative ecological park, which
furthermore promotes values of environmental preservation to break with the image of mega
urbanized and industrialized metropolis.
The ecological park was highly regarded in the international community, as an innovative
“example for foreigners of contemporary environmental restoration techniques. It was
benchmarked by countries such as Indonesia and Cambodia and won the Special Award
from UN-Habitat for having developed and improved human settlement and quality of urban
life. The booklet published to explain and promote the park was crafted in order to “be of help
to city governments contemplating the use of suburban areas as waste landfills or securing
green space for residents”, addressed to city governments who experience “overcrowding
and other environmental problems caused by development during urbanization” (Seoul
Metropolitan Government and The Seoul Institute, 2014). We can therefore understand the
benefits for Seoul to build such a park, especially when the city was at the centre of the
world stage during the Games, in order to showcase its skills and to export them worldwide.
Conclusion
All in all, the transformation of the city’s sole landfill into the ecological World Cup Park was
enabled at a precise historical moment, which can be identified as the city’s post-industrial
turn. The Multiple Streams Analysis Framework is here useful to understand how and why
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this project was born, firstly from the characterization of the landfill as a symbol of the city’s
industrial past - and therefore as a “problem” -, then from the selection of the ecological
park among solutions proposed by a vastly mobilized set of urban actors. The analysed
case, furthermore, can explain how the project was politically coinciding with the city’s larger
prospects of becoming a world class city. The park, indeed, was conceived as an initial
step to develop the whole district. After the humiliation that the city faced during the Asian
Financial Crisis, hosting the World Cup was a leverage in order to reshape the image of the
city through public investments.
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REFERENCES
Baek, Won-Kyung, Hyung-Sup Jung, Min-Jeong Jo, et al. (2019) “Ground subsidence
observation of solid waste landfill park using multi-temporal radar interferometry”,
International Journal of Urban Sciences, 23 ( )3. p. 406‐421.
Cohen, D. E. (2014). Seoul’s Digital Media City: A history and 2012 status report on a
South Korean digital arts and entertainment ICT cluster. International Journal of Cultural
Studies, 17(6), 557–572.
Joo, Yu Min. (2018). Megacity Seoul: Urbanization and the Development of Modern South
Korea. Routledge.
Kingdon, J. (1984). Agendas, Alternativess and Public Policies. Harpers Collins, New York.
Lee, Myeong-Jun. (2019). “Transforming post-industrial landscapes into urban parks:
Design strategies and theory in Seoul, 1998–present”, Habitat International, vol.91.
Roy, A., & Ong, A. (2011). Worlding cities: Asian experiments and the art of being global /
edited by Ananya Roy and Aihwa Ong. Wiley-Blackwell.
Seoul Metropolitan Government, The Seoul Institute. (2014). Modularization of Korea’s
Development Experience: Nanjido Eco Park Restoration from Waste Dumping Site,
Ministry of Strategy and Finance, Republic of Korea.
Seoul Metropolitan Government. (2015). Landfill recovery project: transformation of landfill
to ecological park. Seoul Solutions.kr retrieved August 2020, www.seoulsolution.kr/
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BUILDING A WORLD-CULTURAL CITY:
LAND-USE AND ZONING REGULATION IN SEOUL
By Carrick Reddin & Shaoni Purkait
Introduction: Zoning Policy and District Units Plans in Seoul
Walking down the streets of the historic Insadong district is a contradictory cultural experience
that raises questions about the development of the South Korean capital. In the district
that is branded as the “historical culture” zone, small traditional artisan shops, attractive
modern art galleries and high-rise office towers are juxtaposed together creating a mixture of
forms and styles. What led to this amalgamation of historic and modern elements? Starting
from the authors’ experience of three differently branded cultural Seoul districts, the article
scrutinizes the instruments used to govern the development of the city as a world cultural
city.
The capital city of South Korea, Seoul, is a dynamic metropolis with many unique and
zestful neighbourhoods. In the past twenty years, local governments have used zoning
and land-use planning to shape these neighbourhoods into specialized districts known for
culture, history, art, fashion, and more. Through Urban Management Plans and District Unit
Plans, municipal executives establish the zoning and land-use regulations that steer the
development of neighbourhoods.
The current system of land-use planning and zoning was established in 2002 with the
National Land Planning and Utilisation Act. This act established a rigid hierarchical urban
planning governance structure, while it also devolves important responsibilities to urban
governments. Districts and metropolitan plans must adhere to the national plan. The
Comprehensive National Territorial Plan (CNTP) is the current national plan which sets forth
long-term policies “for the land-use, development and conservation of the national territory
[…] it includes policies for population reorganisation, industry placement, infrastructure
supply, living environment improvement, resource-management of national territory, and
environmental conservation” (OECD, 2012). The 2002 legislation devolved many urban
planning and development powers to local authorities. The devolution of these powers is
concretized in a shift from a managerial to an entrepreneurial approach of urban governance
(Harvey, 1989). More practically, two local-level instruments used by local governments to
shape urban development were introduced: the Urban Management Plans and the District
Unit Plans.
The Urban Management Plan is the main zoning plan in Korea. Developed by local
governments and approved by regional governments, these plans impose legally binding
restrictions on land-use (OECD, 2019). In Seoul, the most recent urban management plan
was passed in 2015. The Seoul Plan 2030 represents a shifted focus toward citizen-centred
development. However, it builds upon the planning and zoning policies elaborated in the
2020 Basic Urban Plan, passed in 2004 (Seoul Solution, 2017). The 2020 Basic Urban Plan
set forth the vision for shaping the Seoul that we see walking down its streets today. Its goal
was to make “Seoul as the world-cultural city and the central city of north-east Asia” (Seoul
Metropolitan Government, 2004). The 2020 Basic Urban Plan established four cultural and
specialized zones for Seoul. The central downtown, where Insadong is located, was labelled
as a zone of “historical culture”, the northern section of Seoul as a zone of “eco/unification
culture”, the eastern section of the city as a zone of “mass culture” with fashion stores and
stadiums; the southern section, with Seocho, as a zone of “modern culture and arts” with
museums, theatres, and art galleries; and the western section, where Hongdae is located,
Urban Change, “Seoul Style”
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as a zone of “international culture and arts”.
Within each of these zones, District Urban Plans are used to establish a vision for block
and neighbourhood-scale development. The OECD explains, “In Seoul […] District Unit
Plans exist as the lowest level of land-use plans in order to steer the development of small
neighbourhoods and individual blocks”.
This article focuses on the last thirty years during which the Seoul Metropolitan Government
has gained powers over its urban development. The following sections explore three
districts of Seoul analysing the instruments -zoning and land-use planning - that have been
introduced to govern the production of the world-cultural city vision. In a context of fast
political and economic changes such as processes of democratization and liberalization,
the instrumentation analysis helps to better understand the difficult balanced power relation
within the policy subsystem.
The Historic City: Ikseon-Dong (Insadong)
Insadong’s development began more than 500 years ago when it was home to government
officials of the Joseon Dynasty. Since the end of the Korean War, the district has grown
as Seoul’s historic centre of cultural and artistic life (Krich, 2000). Insadong was initially
designated a “cultural street” in the mid-1980s in the lead up to the Seoul Olympic
Games. Indeed, during the Olympics and in the years following, Insadong became the
main destination for tourists visiting Seoul. Following the “cultural street” distinction, the
neighbourhood experienced large-scale development led by chaebols (conglomerates),
prompting intense gentrification and the destruction of historic buildings in favour of large
office buildings and malls (Yun, 2017).
The most glaring example of this chaebol-led development is the 131-meter tall Millenium
Tower, constructed by Samsung at the edge of the neighbourhood on what was previously
artisan shops. The extent of this development prompted large-scale protests which led the
Korean government to, in 2000, place a two-year moratorium on new building permits in
Insadong (Douglass, 2016) Efforts over the last two decades to maintain cultural and historic
heritage have involved restrictions on land-use and zoning policies which recall the idea of a
historic, cultural city. However, the complex relationship between the state and industry has
meant that zoning restrictions may be changed when they suit the desires of those in power,
both politically and economically. For example, under the leadership of Mayor Lee MyungBak, the Seoul Metropolitan Government officially designated Insadong as the nation’s first
National Cultural District. Through District Urban Plans and Urban Management Plans,
the government set restricted height, land-use, and setback requirements to delineate
their intention to preserve and promote traditional cultures while preventing uncontrolled
development and commercial encroachment. However, with the 2004 passage of the Basic
Seoul Urban Plan for 2020, the metropolitan government boasted the “historical culture”
of the central district, where Insadong is located, while simultaneously relaxing land-use
regulations. For example, the new plan loosened restrictions on building height for residential
buildings in the area while continuing a policy of historic preservation, effectively contributing
to gentrification (Kim, 2011)
The election of Mayor Won-soon Park in 2012 represented a shift toward citizen-centered
development in Insadong. Indeed, in Insadong, government urban planning documents were
revised to curtail the growth of commercial chain stores in the district. However, tensions
remained between the historic, grassroots vision for development in Insadong and what is
permitted through planning and zoning laws. For example, in 2013, the Seoul Metropolitan
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government lifted a 35-year-old ban on community-wide land development in Insadong in
order to widen roads for emergency services. The legislation also removes some caps on
building height and setbacks, effectively allowing for the large-scale development which led
to the building permit moratorium 13 years earlier. Government officials promised that “the
city government will try its best to preserve Insadong’s historical features.” (Suk, 2013) At
this same time, Mayor Park gave increased power to citizens and civil society groups to
participate in the development and implementation of urban plans. The Seoul Plan 2030,
published in 2015 as a revision of the Seoul Urban Plan for 2020, set forth a vision for the
development of Seoul until 2030. The plan was the first of its kind to be formed in close
collaboration with citizens and grassroots groups.
The case of Insadong shows the complex relationship between government, chaebols, and
grassroots organizations in negotiating the urban form of Insadong through zoning and
urban plans.
The International and Independent City: Hongdae
Hongdae is a district of Seoul located south of the Han river. The area, known for its
nightlife, music, and arts scene, owes its names to the presence of Hongik Daehakgyo, one
of South Korea’s most prestigious colleges of fine arts. Beginning in the 1990s, the area
became home to young artists and musicians who participated in the development of the
neighbourhood by converting existing buildings into studios, music venues, and communal
gathering spaces (Joongang Special Reporting Team, 2012). Built upon a reputation for
alternative music and student nightlife, Hongdae evolved rapidly at the turn of the century
as, amidst the Asian Financial Crisis, forces of globalization and neo-liberalization took hold.
Following the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the value of real estate in Seoul dropped more
than 50% and many chaebols faced bankruptcy. Facing economic collapse, the South
Korean government agreed to a bailout by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after having
accepted to adopt liberal economic and trade policies. The IMF investment brought structural
adjustment programs, which included opening Korean markets and deregulating financial
industries. Alongside the liberalization of the national economy, the Seoul Metropolitan
Government changed land-use regulations in select districts to encourage investment in the
real estate market. The liberalization of the Korean economy and urban form was formalized
in the Seoul Urban Plan for 2020, which called for new land-use and real estate finance
laws. The plan also identified Hongdae and the surrounding western district as future media
and digital industry zones. These neighbourhoods were meant to attract investment in the
media and digital sectors as part of Seoul’s transition to a service-oriented economy. In
Hongdae, laws allowed for the construction of new large-scale buildings and an influx of
franchise businesses, raising overall rents and displacing long-time residents such as artists
and clubs (Cho, 2019).
Prompted by what was seen as the displacement of traditional culture from the Hongdae
district, the local government sought ways to preserve the traditional aspects of Hongdae,
particularly its reputation as a centre for musical and artistic expression. In numerous reports
between 2001 and 2005, city representatives called for the designation of Hongdae as a
“cultural district” like Insadong. The area was eventually designated as a cultural district,
however, plans for the area keep open the possibility for external investment and real estate
speculation, intensifying issues of displacement (Cho, 2007).
The effects of this relaxed land-use policy and economic deregulation are seen as one walks
down the streets of Hongdae – McDonald’s and Zara are scattered in ground floor retail
spaces of new high-rise buildings, while small back streets are filled with chic nightclubs
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82
and underground music bars. Countless students strut the streets in the latest fashions.
The area today is an amalgamation of hip nightlife, free markets, and street art exhibitions.
Recent trends in development in the neighbourhood’s historic core have displaced the
independent culture that made Hongdae famous. Today, the traditional independent scene
and street vibrancy is found in the southern end near the Hapjeong station.
The case of Hongdae shows efforts by the government to guide the development of a
neighbourhood famous for its independent, alternative culture. Local culture was sacrificed
for large-scale development and investment, bringing new shops, clubs, and businesses
to Hongdae. The Seoul Plan 2030 proposes that Hongdae and the surrounding northwest
region ¨specialize in the creative cultural industry” and improve the management of housing
and transit infrastructures. Based on the area’s trajectory over the past several decades,
it seems the grassroots culture of Hongdae will continue to be displaced in order to make
room for international brands and private investment.
The Modern and Artistic City: Seocho
The district of Seocho was incorporated into city-wide development plans in the mid-1980s.
State-subsidized development of housing and high quality educational facilities sparked a
period of large-scale construction including the development of the Seoul Arts Center in
1988 and a number of private high-rise buildings in the 1990s. Quickly, the area grew as
a highly sought-after place to live. Through government-led urban design and land-use
policies, SMG and the Seocho government encouraged artistic and cultural development in
efforts to attract external investment and provide a high-quality of life for the citizens of this
upper-class district.
Throughout its history, Seocho and the surrounding Gangnam region have comported a
loose zoning code with lax planning regulations, allowing for an amalgamation of different
architecture styles and land-uses side-by-side. The Urban Design Office of Seocho City
boasts this as one of their strengths, citing the mixed-use nature of the district as one of
its most attractive elements. The Seoul Urban Plan for 2020 identified Seocho and the
surrounding area for “modern culture and arts” development. This legislation maintained lax
land-use development laws, which supported further investment in the district. Alongside
this development, the government invested heavily in supporting the modern cultural life of
Seocho (Jung et al., 2013)
One example of this investment in culture is the creation of an urban design office for
Seocho. One of its only kind in Seoul, the government office focuses on the promotion of
culture (arts, music, shows, libraries) in an effort to be the center of culture for Seoul and for
Korea. As representatives from the Urban Design Office describe, “Seocho is a good place
to raise children, to live healthful lives, to spend time in nature… we use urban design to
create main avenues with different cultures - corporations, shopping, taking walks, etc.”1.
The integration of urban planning regulation with urban design principles represents a shift
in the way local governments seek to promote Seoul as a world-cultural city. Indeed, this
shift is represented in the latest plans for the district. In the Seoul Plan 2030, the southeast
region spans Seocho and Gangnam districts. In this region, the SMG recommends the
“enhancement of global business and commerce function.” (Simrc, 2014) It also suggests
promoting the specialized cultural arts area found near the Seoul Arts Center in Seocho.
Alongside the maintenance of land-use regulations that attract large-scale investment,
Seocho is investing in urban design and citizen-centred public policies to establish its
1
Notes by the authors took during a site visit at the Seocho-gu Urban Design Office
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reputation as a centre for modern arts and culture.
Conclusion
The City of Seoul has undergone transformational development over the past sixty years.
Save some historical streets and buildings, the city would be unrecognizable to a Seoulite
of the 1950s. In efforts to establish Seoul as a global city, local and national governments
used urban planning and zoning policy to effectively guide investment and development. In
the mid-20th century, development priorities focused on export-oriented industrialization
and the commodification of land, enabled through urban plans which called for such. Private
development, much of which was led by chaebols, exploded in the 1980s and 1990s. This
development was facilitated by lax zoning and planning laws across the city which, following
the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, were further relaxed in order to incentivise investment.
Beginning in the early 21st century, as South Korea entered its second decade of
democracy, communities began to speak out against what they saw as excessive statesubsidized private development and gentrification. A number of reports issued between
2000 and 2005 calls for the preservation of historic neighborhoods and local culture. The
importance of culture in Seoul’s development was made explicit in the Seoul Urban Plan for
2020, which, published in 2004, made recommendations and associated land-use policies
to support the development of Seoul through the lens of distinct cultural districts. Despite
the recommendations of the plan, government actors continued to bend planning rules to
allow for large-scale, private development.
It appears this corporate-led development trend may be changing. The Seoul Plan 2030,
published in 2015 under the direction of the progressive Mayor Park, calls for a renewed
commitment to cultural heritage and a focus on citizen-centred development. The plan,
developed with strong community participation, imagines a Seoul where citizens have
access to all they need to thrive - health, education, employment, culture, transportation,
housing, and more. However, in order to achieve the promise of Seoul Plan 2030, the
government has to acquire the institutional capacity of integrating citizen-led efforts within
rooted political relationships based on the Chaebols’ powerful position. An already working
example of this type of integration in Seoul can be taken from the sharing city projects led
by the Dosigong Gam architecture atelier. By developing regulations that allow citizens to
exercise their creativity in building a city that reflects their culture, their dreams, and their
future, Seoul would value its cultural diversity and heritage achieving its goal of being a
world-cultural city.
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Photograph 1: Insadong at night taken by the authors
Photograph 2: Insadong at evening taken by the authors
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and Cultural Politics. Universität Bielefeld - Fakultät für Soziologie.
Cho, M. (2019). Entrepreneurial Seoulite: Culture and Subjectivity in Hongdae, Seoul.
University of Michigan Press.
Douglass, M. (2016). Creative communities and the cultural economy—Insadong, chaebol
urbanism and the local state in Seoul. Cities, 56, 148–155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
cities.2015.09.007
Harvey, D. (1989). From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism: The Transformation in Urban
Governance in Late Capitalism. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 71(1),
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Joongang Special Reporting Team. (2012, luglio 12). Indie spirit lives on in Hongdae’s
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joinsmsn.com
Jung, I., Knapp, R. G., & Ruan, X. (2013). Architecture and Urbanism in Modern Korea
(Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning in Asia’s Architecture). University of Hawaii Press.
Kim, W. B. (2011). The viability of cultural districts in Seoul. City, Culture and Society, 2(3),
141–150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2011.04.003
Krich, J. (2000, aprile 7). Decision to Stop Building in Insadong Triggers a Battle Over What
to Save. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB955042222985600822
OECD. (2012). OECD Urban Policy Reviews, Korea 2012. OECD Publishing.
OECD. (2019). The Governance of Land-use in Korea: Urban Regeneration. OECD
Publishing.
Seoul Metropolitan Government. (2004). Basic Seoul Urban Plan for 2020. Seoul
Metroplitan Government.
Seoul Solution. (2017). Urban Planning & Management [Text]. Seoul Solution. https://
seoulsolution.kr
Simrc. (2014). Citizen Participation Model for Seoul’s Master Plan2030 Seoul Plan. https://
www.slideshare.net/simrc/pdf2030-seoul-plan
Suk, G. (2013, agosto 22). Seoul lifts development ban on Insa-dong. www.koreaherald.
com/
Yun, J. (2017). Globalizing Seoul: The City’s Cultural and Urban Change. Taylor & Francis.
Urban Change, “Seoul Style”
86
MAKING SEOUL’S POLICIES SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE: THE CASE OF
YANGCHEON RECOVERY FACILITY
Arnaud Cholous & Victor Labaeye
Not only public policy analysis focuses on policy design, but also on policy implementation
and on the different strategies to build consent and trust. Indeed, one of the steps
policymakers have to think about when implementing public policies is the way they will
earn people’s consent and approval. The process of democratization initiated in the late
1980s in South Korea has put an emphasis on this dimension of policymaking, especially
at the municipal level in Seoul. The city’s built environment today is the result of the different
ways the municipality has sought to gain Seoulites’ trust. Indeed, various strategies are
used to smoothen the implementation of public policies of very different scale, and therefore
build consent in the Seoul Metropolitan Area. The SMG has initiated a major process of
participative democracy that has been growing since the 2000s. Since the election of
Mayor Park in 2011, a new form of governance has dawned (Hong, 2015). A “collective
governance” appeared as the necessary response to a demand for improved democracy
after controversial mega-projects and previous mayoral mandates (citizens’s hall, cyber
democracy, …).
An emphasis has also been placed on increasing the social acceptability of urban projects
even though it is not an exclusive feature of the democratic framework of South Korea. For
instance, in the 1980s already, the State provided fair compensation for evicted households
as a way to smoothly carry out its massive housing projects (Joo 2019).
The concept of social acceptability has been primarily theorized in the study of environmental
regulation policymaking but can be useful to analyze the implementation of any other
project. Merging Yelle’s (Yelle 2013) and Stankey & Schindler’s (Stankey & Schindler 2006)
understanding of social acceptability, 8 main parameters influencing the social acceptability
of a project by a population can be identified (Mern 2019):
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The impact on the environment: direct and indirect impacts a project will have on the
local environment which can be compensated or mitigated.
The real or perceived risks: Different actors might have different perception of the
potential risk a project can pose. It can be dealt with through transparency policy
from the project carrier.
The values, beliefs and expectations: It shapes the perception that each actor will
have of the project before it is implemented.
Local knowledge: Using local expertise and experiences can help increase
acceptability.
Social, economic and territorial context: Local context of the geographical area
must be taken into account when implementing a project.
Level of trust in institutions and promoters of the project: The level of trust local
population has in its decision-making bodies and project developers plays an
important role.
The level of involvement in decision-making: Involving local actors in the decisionmaking process allow them to influence a project that has direct effect on their dailylife.
The benefits and repercussions for the community: To be widely accepted, a project
needs to bring direct or indirect social and economic benefits to the communities it
is affecting.
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If not exclusive to a democratic form of governance, social acceptability plays an important
part in gaining local communities’ consent which is more critical in a democratic framework.
Indeed, civil society and citizens in a democratic governance system have a greater ability
to undermine or strengthen a project (protest, legal challenge, …) and in the meantime,
most of the policymakers depend on the suffrage of local communities. Thus, the theoretical
aspects of social acceptability can be traced in various urban project implemented in the
city of Seoul. One interesting example of social acceptability applied to urban project is
the construction of the Yangcheon Resource Recovery Facility. The construction of the
facility (along other ones) came in response to the major issue of waste management in the
1990s. As no recycling facilities existed at the time, huge waste landfills covered western
edges of Seoul (where the DMC, Noeul and Haneul parks stand today). Not only did it pose
environmental and public health threats, but the large area covered by waste could be used
for new urban developments as land prices were skyrocketing. Operational since 1996 and
located on the south bank of the Han river, the infrastructure functions as a sorting center,
a recycling facility as well as a heating central for the Gu (using non-recyclable waste). It is
operated by a private company but the land and the facility is owned by the SMG. Usually,
this kind of facility is not popular among nearby residents as it can cause various nuisances
such as pollution, unpleasant smells, increased trucks traffic and a decrease of land value.
Yet, no significant protestations rose against the project whether it is at the time of the
construction or today. It is partly explained by the implementation of measures aimed at
increasing the level of social acceptability of the Yangcheon facility.
Regarding the impact on the environment, the real or perceived risk and the level of trust in
promoters/institutions, levels of pollution induced by the activity of the facility are monitored
in real time in order to meet the legal requirements in terms of pollution regulation. Those
information are made publicly accessible by the facility as a way to ensure transparency
and provide reliable data on the effects the facility could have on direct air pollution and its
potential side effects such as the decrease of land value or the development of pollutionrelated pathologies on neighbouring residents. It is a guarantee of limited impact on the
surroundings of Yangcheon facility while providing a trustworthy assessment of the potential
risks.
An important aspect of the social acceptability strategy of the facility leans on the delivery of
direct and indirect benefits and repercussions for the community. In addition to the creation
of hundreds of jobs, the facility brings tangible benefits and advantages to local dwellers
such as half-priced heating charges, free sport and art classes, an education center for the
children of the area, sport infrastructure such as a swimming pool with reduced fees and
various green spaces. The case of Yangcheon shows that proactive policies in favor of social
acceptability can help build the consent of populations when it comes to large, unpopular
but necessary infrastructures.
Yet, Yangcheon facility’s social acceptability strategy does not encompass the use of local
knowledge and an involvement of local communities in decision making in any way. The
technicality of this specific utility is definitely an explanation. It remains difficult to introduce
local knowledge in the science of sorting and recycling waste and involve local communities
in the administrative and technical decisions of the facility. Still, the example of Yangcheon
provides an interesting insight into the relevance of the theory of social acceptability applied
to the context of Seoul’s modern governance and its inherent limitations.
Urban Change, “Seoul Style”
88
REFERENCES
Hong, S. (2015). “Citizen Participation in Budgeting: a Trade-off Between Knowledge and
Inclusiveness”, Public Administration Review. 75 (4), 572-582
Joo, Y.M. (2019). Megacity Seoul, Urbanization and the Development of Modern South
Korea. Routledge, New York.
Stankey, G., Schindler, B. (2006). Formation of Social Acceptability Judgments and Their
Implications for Management of Rare and Little‐Known Species. Conservation Biology. 20
(1), 28-37.
Yelle, V. (2013). Social perception of ecosystem management in Québec’s black spruce
forest: can large harvests emulating fire be acceptable to forest users, stakeholders and
the uninformed public?. Ph.D. Thesis. Department des Sciences du Bois et la Foret,
Université Laval, Québec.
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SUSTAINABILITY IN SEOUL: ECOLOGICAL MODERNIZATION OR
ENVIRONMENTAL PARTICIPATORY GOVERNANCE, OR BOTH?
By Juliette Thijs & Achille Macé
Emerging from the rubbles of the Korean civil war (1950-53), Seoul quickly rose to become a
key metropolis of South East Asia. Today, the centralised top-down development of the city
has shifted to what is claimed to be a more sustainable and eco-friendly model. This article
will exam how this development shift occurred and whether it is path-dependent to Seoul’s
emblematic fast development. Then, it will take two case studies - Magok district and the
Alternative Seun District Plan - in order to grasp the vision of sustainability adopted by Seoul.
These cases were chosen as they both exemplify two trends in Seoul: Top-down Ecological
Modernization (EM) and more Bottom-up human-centered Sustainable Development. EM
is based on the idea that the political-economic system can be reformed into a sustainable
way through technological innovation (Parr, 2012). It is generally based on top down technomanagerial forms of governance and decision-making where citizens are not integrated into the
process. In contrast, a more deep ecology environmental participatory governance approach
is based on bottom-up practices that put citizens at the center of sustainable development
(Fischer, 2018).
The Korean state’s trajectory since the end of the civil war in 1953 has been characterized by
top-down fast-pasted economic growth. The state had a central role in hand-picking sectors
and industries that would enable the country to develop. The 1970s labour-intensive heavy
manufacturing industry transformed into a few mega-companies, called “chaebols”, in the
1980s that gained ground in the global market (Hyung and Sheng, 2012). Park Chung-hee,
president from 1962 to 1970, was essential in guiding this state-controlled capitalism and
establishing Korea’s cities. The developmental state, where economic development was the
key goal of the government, had outstanding social benefits uplifting the once poor country to
the forefront of globalisation through its export-oriented industrialization (Joo, 2018). This lead
to a once predominantly rural population shifting to an urban more wealthy one. However, from
the 1960s, or the early stage of Korea’s development, it became apparent that this growth had
high environmental costs too. Pollution, congestion and informality pushed the state to think
differently and diversify its activities out of Seoul.
A shift occurred with the democratisation of the state in 1987. Roh Tae-woo was elected
president and turned the country into a “property state”. The Asian economic crisis further
brought reforms with IMF loan’s neo-liberalisation conditions and through the decentralization
of power to local administrations. Seoul quickly gained the status of a world-city metropolis.
Local authorities took up an entrepreneurial role where attracting global investments and
attention became their main goal. To do this, Seoul had to follow a worldwide narrative based
on turning cities into innovative environmental and social hubs. In 2003, mayor Lee Myungbak, for example, removed a highway that covered the Cheonggye stream to transform it into
a recreational space for pedestrians. These types of symbolic urban transformations illustrate
the need for metropolises to be anchored in a robust environmental narrative. As Kriznik (2013)
shows, cities are in fact dependent from each other through nodes of global economy. They
create and adapt to global trends. Sustainability is no exception. The narrative of sustainability
brings in investments, tourists, and capital, but also enables Seoul and Korea to export its
know-how internationally. Songdo, a new smart city built on reclaimed land, is an example of
such development. It attracted multinational corporations through the use of a green narrative
although it has no real environmental impact and is perceived as a “a non-korean city for nonkoreans (Joo, 2018)
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In complete contrast, Park Won-soon who became mayor of Seoul in 2011, based his strategy
on making Seoul more human centered city where citizens were put at the center of urban
governance. His goal was to increase open and participatory dialogues between the Seoul
Metropolitan Government and local habitants. He also put in place initiatives like Seoul’s “sharing
city” programme in 2012 which promoted a culture of sharing rather than accumulation. Its
goals are to increase social ties whilst reducing waste and creating a new form of economic
development. The city has created an online platform (Seoul Sharing hub) that enables
companies and individuals to share skills, goods, services and knowledge, amongst others.
These two types of projects share the same narrative, but their implementation and impacts
diverge. In the next part, we explore how sustainability is understood and practiced in the
smart-green cluster of Magok and in the Alternative Seun development plan. Both projects are
central in the recent development of Seoul and illustrate that the concept of sustainability is fluid
and adapted to different visions and interests. We will look at how they can be located in relation
to Korea and Seoul’s history of governance.
The green cluster of Magok
The development of Magok is presented in the official documents issued by the Seoul Housing
Corporation, its developer, as the “Green city of the Knowledge industry, opening North-East
Asia’s future”(Official SHC documents). Magok is meant to be a hub for high technology
sectors, research centers and startups in which major Korean companies are already investing
such as LG, Lotte S-oil, or Nexen. However, Magok is also conceived as a “self-contained
town for green-innovation”, as Kim, president of the SH Corporation puts it (seoulsolution.
kr). The sustainable dimension of Magok is materialized first through a focus on green tech
research. The neighbourhood is also built using housing energy efficiency and has numerous
integrated green spaces. Indeed, a park connects all parts of the districts in an ecological axis;
it is pedestrian and bicycle friendly and the botanic garden aims at creating a “harmonious”
garden town (Ibid.). Its housing developments are energy-savvy due to new technologies and
the size of the apartments are not too big to fit the needs of the young professionals that would
come to live there.
However, Magok was not always meant to take this path of development. The project was
repurposed over the years even if the shape of the cluster remained. As the largest remaining
empty swath of land in Seoul, it has been part of the Han River Redevelopment Project, which,
issued in the beginning of the 2000’s, also concerned the development of the Sangnam
Millenium New Town or Digital Media City. Initially, the focus was on the development of a
North-East regional cluster for high tech. However, according to Shwayri (2016), the relative
failure of Songdo to reach its goals impacted the conceptualization of Magok: the project had
to learn from the mistakes of the megalomaniacal, too international IFEZ and incorporated
the increasing challenge of sustainable development. A more human-sized and green local
paradigm for the project appeared and was branded as distinctive from the too ambitious
national logic of IFEZ (Shwayri, 2016). Through this adaptation, Seoul’s local development
rationale distinguished itself from the national one.
Meant to be completed in 2020, the Magok cluster illustrates a conceptualization of sustainable
projects as one in which public-private partnerships are the backbone. Sustainability is defined
through its energy-savvy buildings and green spaces, while its estate development targets
young dynamic professionals. There is only a relatively small decoupling of economic growth
and environmental harm (Lee, 2012), but also a will of distinction from the national projects and
rationale.
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Figure 1: Magok, South Korea.
Source: Korea Post, 2014 http://www.koreapost.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=592
Even if the Magok project is illustrative of the Seoul local green growth conception, it is not
fully representative of the way Seoul approaches sustainability. Indeed, Magok did not raise
too much contention about the socio-economic dimension of sustainability as it is planned in
a quasi-empty swath of land, however the Seun regeneration plans did. In this sense, one can
point out that Magok is in line with the historical top-down governance of the country where
citizen participation is at beast a box-ticking practice. The neighborhood favours the growth
of its historical chaebols although it seeks to favour the development of smaller businesses.
Overall, sustainability here is geared towards a business-friendly development, technological
development and the market at the expense of socio-ecological change. Although the local
government through the Seoul Housing Corporation does not have the small role as previous
public entities, it takes on the hat of a “facilitator” to government-business partnerships which
enables reforms but no fundamental transformations. It enables the creation of “green utopias”
that are not robust environmentally or socially.
Urban Sustainability, Green-Washing and the Alternative Seun Development Plan
The Seun district regeneration has been a long-discussed topic in Seoul’s development
agenda. It is a historical neighbourhood in the east of the city center that has been shaped
by national and local policies through time. In 2006, the “Urban Renaissance Master Plan for
Downtown Seoul” was launched to increase the international competitivity of the area. The
plan consisted in a neighborhood regeneration around four themed-corridors and planned for
instance the famous restoration of the Cheongyyecheon alongside the Historic Corridor as well
as the Dongdaemun Design Plaza along the Creative one. One of the corridors was named the
“Green Corridor” and its ambition was to replace the Seun Sangga, a kilometer long building
that mixes commercial and residential purposes from the 1960’s, by a linear green space and
to reorganize the area. However, no investor could carry the financial cost due to the 2008 crisis
and the strict restrictions of the building regulations downtown. Furthermore, a local protest
Urban Change, “Seoul Style”
92
rose, fueled by locals fearing indirect eviction, and after many delays, a new plan was proposed
in 2013.
Therefore, the Alternative Plan was put in place thanks to a long participatory process which
favored incremental changes and the conservation of existing small businesses (Schuetze,
Chelleri, 2015). The Plan will strengthen existing businesses, value the historical areas and build
similar limited buildings in the surrounding area. When we visited the Seun Sangga, the lower
floors of the buildings were still filled with small electronics shops. Inside and outside of the
building, there were small exhibition rooms that displayed what was once sold there, still sold
and the main materials used. This small exhibition is perhaps a first element in the museification
of the area and may pose a threat to the future of Seun. However, this projet can be inscribed
in the lineation of Park-son’s work in creating a more human-centered city based on putting
citizens first. Although this project may not fit in the classical dimension of “environment” in
sustainable development, it definitely ticks the social and economic dimensions of it. Preserving
the building and the hundreds of employments in the building was a unique move that allowed
citizens to keep their livelihoods in a time when lower economic classes are generally pushed
out of city centers. In this sense, it diverges from the green-washing strategies and the EM
practices of public authorities. If the Green Corridor - destroying the Seun Sangga building to
have a park instead - had gone through, it would have had devastating impacts on the small
business owners. According to Schuetze and Chelleri, the participatory practices saved the
area from being green washed. However, despite the conservation of important parts of the
original environment, some spaces are still devoted to real estate developments in this prime
Figure 2: The original Urban Renaissance Master Plan for Downtown Seoul.
Source: Schuetze, Chelleri, 2015
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location. On the top of the Seun Sangga, we discovered the plans for a near real estate project
about to be constructed. The official guide failed to mention it before someone pointed it out.
The future of the neighborhood is still not guaranteed and only time will tell if the processes
of gentrification, that will probably occur, will put pressure on Seun Sangga’s functioning and
existence.
Indeed, in the famous case of the Cheonggyecheon stream, the project led to gentrification
and higher rents. The actual environmental sustainability (Myung-Rae, 2010) as well as its
social equity of the project are highly questionable (Joo, 2018). However, it is through these
projects that demands for participatory democratic mechanisms grow. In the human-centered
city of Park-son, bottom up decision making is praised to be a solution to avoid greening areas
without taking into consideration social and equality dimensions.
The two case studies exemplify how Seoul’s public authorities have developed multifaceted
understandings of sustainable development and how these understandings were structured
to promote a form of distinction between National and Local paradigms. On the one hand,
Magok is illustrative of the top-down logic of creating eco business-friendly clusters, innovative
integrated neighborhood based on principles of Ecological Modernization. In this sense,
sustainability is used in a rhetoric of economic growth, international wealth attraction and
corporate interests; while aiming at not replicating the mistakes of the national IFEZ. On the
other hand, the Alternative Seun Development shows that there is an attempt to reach a wider
form of sustainability that overcomes image-making greening practices through integration of
bottom-up participative approaches and social equity. Although these approaches are well
inscribed in Park-Son’s mode of governance, the project is quite unique in Seoul’s history of
mega-projects. However, both approaches seem to aim at differentiating their projects from the
past quantitative rationale of the property state to a more qualitative sustainable one. Only time
will gives us a better understanding of the nature of the governance of Seoul towards a more
sustainable pathway. Magok and Seun are only two examples among many others such as the
grassroots local villages (Wolfram, 2015), the community-based Urban Projects of Kkumaru or
Bupyeong Culture Street (Kriznitz, 2013).
Figure 3: A small electronic shop in Seun Sangga.
Source: Author’s own photography, 2020.
Figure 4: Electronic shops and exhibition rooms in
Seun Sangga. Source: Author’s own photography,
2020.
Urban Change, “Seoul Style”
94
REFERENCES
Fischer, F. (2018) Climate crisis and the democratic prospect : participatory governance in
sustainable communities. Oxford : Oxford University Press. 2017.
Hyung Min Kim, Sun Sheng Han, “Seoul”, Cities, Volume 29, Issue 2,2012,
Pages 142-154,ISSN 0264- 2751,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2011.02.003.
Joo, Yu-Min. 2018. Megacity Seoul: Urbanization and the Development of Modern South
Korea. Routledge. 156 pages
Kriznik, B. (2013) Changing approaches to urban development in South Korea: From ‘clean
and attractive global cities’ towards ‘hopeful communities’. International Development
Planning Review, 35 (4) 2013 doi:10.3828/idpr.2013.27
Lee S. (2015), Assessing South-Korea’s Green growth Strategy, International Handbook of
Political Ecology, 345-356
Myung-Rae C. (2010), The politics of urban nature restoration: The case of Cheonggyecheon
restoration in Seoul, South Korea, International Development Planning Review 32(2):145165
Parr, A. (2012). The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Schuetze T., Chelleri L. (2015), Urban Sustainability Versus Green Washing-Fallacy and
Reality of Urban Regeneration in Downtown Seoul, Sustainability 2016, 8, 33; doi:10.3390/
su8010033
Shin, K. & Timberlake, M. (2006). Korea’s Global City: Structural and Political
Implications of Seoul’s Ascendance in the Global Urban Hierarchy. International
Journal
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org/10.1177/0020715206065384
Sociology,
47(2),
145–173.
https://doi.
Shwayri S.T. (2013), A Model Korean Ubiquitous Eco-City? The Politics of Making Songdo,
Journal of Urban Technology 20: 1 (2013) 39–55.
Shwayri S.T. (2016) Turning over a new leaf- Sustainability and urban experimentation in
Seoul, from The Experimental city, p.181-194, Routledge Taylor and Francis
The Korean Post, (2014), Magok: Green next-generation industrial R&D complex in the
heart of city, The Korean Post 28 July 2014, http://www.koreapost.com, (last visited 21
November 2020)
Wolfram M. (2015), Cities shaping grassroots niches for sustainability transitions: Conceptual
reflections and an exploratory case study, Journal of Cleaner Production 173 (2018) 11-23
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LIMITS AND CHALLENGES IN URBAN REGENERATION: THE CASE STUDY
OF SEWOON GROUNDS
Noémie Guigue & Natasha Sohail
Introduction
Crossing the road coming from the Jongmyo Shrine, the oldest Confucian shrine protected
by the UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, the modernist structure of Sewoon Sangga can
be easily recognized. The one-kilometer long megastructure which dates back to the 1960s
is a multi-functional arcade that was built during the conservative Mayor Kim Hyun Ok’s
tenure (1966-1970). The structure was conceived in order to create a progressive image
of Seoul to the eyes of the world (Kwak, 2002). At the time of construction, the Sewoon
Sangga was believed to harbor the “Third Industrial Revolution” (Schmidt, 2018). Despite
the massive plan, at the end of the ‘80s only three out of eight buildings were realized. The
initial modernist emphasis started to shrink in those years arriving at its lowest level during
the Asian Financial Crisis. Jeong Jae-Eun in the first scene of its film “Ecology in Concrete”
(2017) perfectly captured the new image that the megastructure has acquired from the
beginning of the millennium. The physical decline only partially represents the functional
decay.
While the dimensions of the project, the pace at which it grew, and the symbolic modernization
it carried out well represented what has been termed the “Korean Style transformation
(Shin, 2020), the more recent regeneration project of the site, the Again Sewoon” project,
perfectly frames the contemporary “Seoul Style” of urban governance. The “Again Sewoon”,
indeed is the face of urban regeneration in South Korea. Promoted by the democratic mayor
Park Won Soon (2011-2020) after what has been interpreted as a political shift towards
a citizen-centered policy paradigm (Joo, 2018), the project aimed at preserving the city’s
heritage while promoting progressive governance of urban projects. Branded as the “Future
Heritage” of Seoul (Schmidt, 2018), the main goals of the project were to create walking
public spaces to connect two blocks of the megastructure and to revive the electronic
repairing industry of Seoul. Beyond the goals, this article will focus on the values of proposed
throughout the project. To materialize the citizen-centered paradigm declared during the
2014 elections, Mayor Park and the City Hall framed the “Again Sewoon” project using
principles like non-demolition led development, inclusiveness, public participation, antigentrification, connectedness, preservation of the historical and industrial identity of the
neighborhood, the welfare of the local community, etc. Although the regeneration project
has been successful in complying with most of its development principles, it is arguable
that some others have been less reproduced during the implementation phase. This article
analyses the implementation phase of the “Again Sewoon” project in order to understand
how and to what extent its initial values have been accomplished. In other words, the article
is an effort to explore the limits of the Sewoon Arcade regeneration project in terms of
its inclusiveness, anti-gentrification approach, and ability to preserve local businesses and
historical identity of the neighborhood.
Non-Demolition
In January 2016, Mayor Park Won Soon revealed the “Again Sewoon” Project, a revitalization
plan to put life back into the dying industrial heritage of the Sewoon Sangga megastructure.
Under this project, the Sewoon Arcade would have been redesigned rather than demolished
and rebuilt. This strategy implies a new role for residents and shoppers within the project
design and its implementation. However, despite the showcased values of the project, it can
Urban Change, “Seoul Style”
96
be argued that participation remained only a symbolic effort.
In 2016, after having spoken with the Sewoon’s dwellers, Mayor Park stated that “you
residents are the real architects of the new Sewoon Shopping Mall”. Following two of the
most important values of Park’s tenure, participation, and innovation (Kim & Ahn, 2016), the
project was launched by an intensive work of participatory design in order to draw the most
adaptive ad suitable public space possible. The Seoul Metropolitan Government organized
270 interviews with the citizens, 29 Sewoon Forums, 25 expert advisory committee meetings,
and an international design competition for Sewoon Sangga (The Seoul Institute, 2018). To
further strengthen the participatory aspect of the project the Mayor requested the formation
of a citizen committee in order to ensure that the citizen perspective would be incorporated
in the “Again Sewoon” project. However, despite the attempts of citizen participation, the
role of the citizen committee remained only limited to consultation and advisory work and
did not have a real role in the policy and decision-making phase. The process of consultation
and placation practiced by the Seoul government falls under “Tokenism” (Schmidt, 2018).
Focusing on the symbolic effort, it did not represent actual citizen control on the project.
Beyond the citizen-centred design with its elevated pedestrian walkways and the public
pedestrian rooftop, the project failed in preserving the community’s identity and in preventing
gentrification.
Preservation of community’s identity and Anti-Gentrification
Once the walking platforms (designed during the participation process) of the arcade were
completed, many businesses were located to revive Seoul’s vanishing repair industry. During
the shop allocation process, Mayor Park tried to insure the adoption of anti-gentrification
parameters. More precisely, he signed the Anti-Gentrification Cooperation Agreement in
2016 with the majority of Sewoon Sangga’s businesses to empower tenants against rising
rents (Shim, 2018). Despite the attempt, when the shop allocation process began, signals
of gentrification emerged.
As defined by Clark gentrification is “a process involving a change in the population of landusers such that the new users are of a higher socioeconomic status than the previous users,
together with an associated change in the built environment through reinvestment in fixed
capital” (2005 p.253) . In this article, this definition by Clark (2005) has been mobilized to
highlight the gentrification within Sewoon Arcade in terms of shop holders’ selection.
A walk within the arcade today is a living experience that narrates to the visitors about the
historical evolution of electronic devices. It depicts the story of human legacy in terms of
both invention and innovation. Along the walking platforms and within the tall buildings there
are shoppers specialized in repairing home appliances, mobile phones, cameras, video
games, etc. At this point in the walk, it can seem that the project of revitalization succeeded
in preserving the industrial heritage of the structure. However, a walk around the district
where the Sewoon Sangga is located reveals a different plot.
The tour not only savors one with the sight of the first computer, mobile, or video game
model in the world but also brings up a sharp contrast between the shop holders placed
within and outside the arcade. The shops within the arcade have walls embellished with
numerous degrees, certificates, and awards of the shopkeepers commonly referred to
as “Meister”. These certificates and awards create an advanced image of the city in the
sector of highly qualified repairers and manufacturers. However, once out of the arcade
it is possible to observe numerous manufacturers who hold small hut-shaped shops with
little or no certificates hanging on their walls. The contrast between the two professional
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Photograph 1: Condominiums and hut-shaped shops around Sewoon Arcade
Source: Libertad Sobrado
environments, within and outside the arcade, raises questions about the equal participation
of all the citizens and business owners in the Sewoon regeneration project along with
questions about the anti-gentrification attempt.
A second element that highlights the risk of gentrification is the new Sewoon Grounds
district. It is an urban intervention that will replace the low and crowded shelters next to the
Sewoon Sangga, where the non-specialized shopper described above are located. The new
white building with green terraces is envisioned as a “people-oriented urban design” (kcap,
2016) that will dynamize craftsmanship and will overturn the Sewoon district. The dense
multi-story building pops up as a stark contrasting the values of the regeneration project.
Moreover, the upper-class building foresees the replacement of makeshift huts and small
manufacturing businesses conflicting with the idea of the anti-gentrification agreement.
Inhabitants are also being under pressure to leave their place in view of destruction (Michael,
2019).
The new Sewoon Grounds district was launched by the Rotterdam based architecture
studio after that the Seoul Housing Communities Corporation commissioned them the job
in 2016, the same year during which Mayor Park revealed the regeneration project of the
arcade. This timeframe coincidence further reinforces the idea of the instrumental role of
the “Again Sewoon” regeneration process well hidden behind the bottom-up participatory
project.
Conclusion
Observing the development process that the Sewoon Sangga along with its district is
experiencing, a general tension is revealed between small unprivileged communities and
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Photograph 2: Sewoon Grounds, sustainable mixed-use urban redevelopment with preservation of
historical structures
Source: KCAPS Architects & Planners
more rooted and powerful actors. Two trends can be identified by looking at this tension:
gentrification and exclusion. On the one hand, Sewoon Arcade may appear more like a
museum enclave in the middle of a newly developed neighborhood, being therefore the
last remnant of the industrial past. On the other hand, the new Sewoon Grounds project by
both local government and real estate developers is quickly steering the new image of the
district homogenizing it according to modern and high-rise standards. Thus, Mayor Park
Won Soon’s new inclusive policy is unable to keep all its promises by pretending to restore
the industrial identity of the district with participative decision-making. So far, this symbolic
effort has worked partially by showcasing Sewoon Arcade as a promising project and by
revealing deep contrasts and inequalities.
From a comparative perspective, it can be argued that manufacturers’ local resistance
to eviction and gentrification may not be sufficient in the long run against what Goldman
identifies “speculative urbanization” (Goldman, 2011). Some aspects of his analysis of
Bangalore’s world-class projects is a sobering thought in the case of Seoul. To create a
world-class city, Bangalore’s government goes hand in hand with real estate developers
in the transformation of the urban space into money-maker land at the expense of many
dispossessed citizens. Despite the participatory narrative, the coupled projects of Sewoo
Sangga and Sewoon Grounds reveals a scenario with similar public-private interests and
networks. Moreover, using a historical perspective it can be found a linear trajectory of deeprooted practices that go on since the 1990s and are responsible for new-build gentrification
projects such as the last Sewoon Grounds design. It is the case of megaprojects with a
growth-oriented paradigm analyzed by Joo (2018) such as the Dongdaemun Design Plaza,
built by Zaha Hadid in 2006, or the Han River Renaissance Project.
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REFERENCES
Clark, E. (2005). The order and simplicity of gentrification: A political challenge. Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York.
Goldman, M. (2011). Speculative Urbanism and the Making of the Next World City:
Speculative urbanism in Bangalore. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research,
35(3), 555–581.
Jeong, J. (2017). Ecology in Concrete.
Joo, Y.-M. (2018). Megacity Seoul: Urbanization and the development of modern South
Korea.
Routledge Advances in Korean Studies. Routledge, New York.
kcap. (2016). Sewoon Grounds—Projects. Kcap.Eu. www.kcap.eu (last visited 15 October
2020)
Kim, I. H., & Ahn, N. R. (2016). Seoul Governance Impact Report. Seoul Institute, Seoul.
Michael, C. (2019). “I’m panicking”: Seoul rips out its manufacturing heart. The Guardian.
(2019, February 20)
Schmidt, M. (2018). Shaping Seoul: Employing Heritage in the Urban Regeneration Projects
Seoullo 7017 and Again Sewoon [Master thesis, Leiden University].
Shim, Y. (2018). A Once-Maligned Concrete Megastructure in Seoul is Revitalized. Metropolis.
www.metropolismag.com (2018, August 8).(last visited 15 October 2020)
Shin, H. B. (2020). Urban Transformation ‘Korean Style’: Lessons from Property-based Urban
Development. In Exporting Urban Korea? Reconsidering the Korean Urban Development
Experience. Routledge
The Seoul Institute. (2018). Regeneration Without Demolition: Remaking Sewoon. The
Seoul Institute.
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© Photo: “Views” on the landscape. Seoul 2020. Libertad Sobrado.
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4
TOWARDS A
K - S M A RT C I T Y
THE NEW “KOREAN URBANISM”
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UNPACKING THE “SMART CITY”:
A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE QUESTIONS FACING SMART CITY TECHNOLOGY
By Constance Brown & Pauline Dutheil
The “smart city” presents itself as a new urban model to answer the challenges of the
Anthropocene, or the age of man. In Seoul, the South Korean government has, in the past two
decades, begun a campaign to further integrate “smart” technologies into the governance
of daily urban life; a micro-level example of this model is the “smart welfare” program
presented by the Seoul Digital Foundation1, which proposes to transform care services for
the elderly living at home with a “Senior Digital Tour” (Seoul Metropolitan Government, n.d.),
an “IoT based healthcare management for the elderly”, and for the general population with
the development of “Smart Hospital Services” as a means of improving the efficacy and
public access to geriatric healthcare. At a slightly larger scale, the Songdo smart-city, in the
Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ), is a satellite city 45 minutes outside of Seoul proper
and functions as a prime example of how governments are able to use new technology
networks to regulate every aspect of daily life, including traffic and public safety.
In this article, we wish to question the relevance of the rhetoric of the adjective “smart” to
describe increasing surveillance and data collection and a more general trend to put hightech at the center of the urban environment. We argue that though it does provide impressive
branding opportunities and solves some problems facing cities today, the manner in which
“smart-city” technologies are being implemented fail to tackle the fundamental issues of
climate change and rising social inequalities which are shaping the twenty-first century in
the context of the anthropocene. In order to do so, we will look at the case of Incheon Free
Economic Zone (IFEZ), developed in the periphery of Seoul beginning in 2003, which brands
itself as a high-tech “smart-city” of its time. The purpose of this article is not to provide
answers, but rather to raise potential key questions and concerns to be addressed in the
future of smart city development.
Technological progress has overshadowed social progress in the priorities laid out by the
smart-city model; some “smart-city” initiatives manage to answer social issues in a relevant
way, a notable example being Sharing City Seoul: a project of the Seoul Metropolitan
Government which pushes for sharing services, such as car-sharing or used clothing
donations, at the metropolitan scale with the help of technological platforms. Such projects
allow for a new approach for consumption that do work to fight against systems of
overproduction, overconsumption, and unnecessary waste of goods such as clothing and
natural resources. However, the bigger part of the “smart city” initiative has to do with the
branding opportunity it offers for high-tech companies to pour technological gadgets into
an urban paradigm in which monitoring and control become ends in themselves instead of
means to achieve particular goals.
Much of South-Korea’s rapid development can be attributed to its high-tech firms, which
enable it to export its skills all over the world. Called “chaebols” in Korean, large South Korean
companies such as Samsung, Hyundai, LG, are at the origin of Korea’s economic success.
Generally formed in the years following the Korean War (1950-1953), these groups arose,
on the one hand, from the determination of President Park Chung-hee (1961-1979) to apply
in Korea the methods that had made the Japanese economy successful, and in particular
the idea of having a few large industrial groups closely linked to the State carry out most
Seoul Digital Foundation was created by the Seoul Metropolitan Government in 2016, their mission is to
solve urban issues.
1
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of the work of economic development: substantial financial aid and multiple advantages
to promote their development, notably the granting of a legal status different from that of
the industry as a whole, which would enable them to crush competition, whether local or
international. These groups of companies, from various fields, have significant economic
and political power. Another characteristic present in all the chaebols is their management:
None of these groups has changed hands since their conception. Within this context, it is
natural to consider technology as the driving force for Seoul’s continuing transformation.
It could be argued that South Korea is tending towards post-humanism, in which human
beings and machines have an increasingly interdependent relationship. Such is the case
of IFEZ, a free economic zone located at the outskirts of Seoul, where companies are
taxed very lightly or not at all to encourage economic activity. IFEZ is functionally a hypertechnologized and sanitized ghost town which uses new-technologies for surveillance and
regulatory purposes with little to no consideration for environmental or social consequences.
Within its 132.9 square kilometers, the project includes an extensive network of security
cameras, LEED-certified buildings, kilometers of bike paths and charging stations for
electric vehicles, as well as a pneumatic waste disposal system in which garbage is thrown
underground and then recycled. According to the project’s website, IFEZ aims to be “the
hub for the government’s strategy of making Northeast Asia’s economic center” (Incheon
Free Economic Zone, 2018). To this end, infrastructure and housing units under construction
since 2003 are expected to welcome 512,000 new residents and numerous tax incentives
are also being put in place to attract international firms (Incheon Free Economic Zone, 2018).
However, the city remains only partly occupied with most Koreans preferring to stay in the
capital, despite the advantages and incentives offered by the municipal government to bring
them to the satellite city.
At a time when environmental awareness is growing, numerous critiques of the “smart-city”
model arise from an ecological standpoint. This urban model is not universally transferable
because of unequal repartitions of technology and financial resources across the world. In
fact, the implementation of these projects requires investment costs that are unaffordable for
developing countries. The very establishment of Songdo, the urban sector of the IFEZ project,
built on 600 hectares of artificial land reclaimed from the Yellow Sea, raises questions about
the sustainability of the means deployed to achieve such a feat. The buildings, at the cutting
edge of the latest construction and administrative technologies, also raise questions about
contemporary ways of building. They are in direct conflict with low-tech, which advocates
practices of reuse and recycling to minimize the use of new materials.
As humanity becomes more and more entrenched in and dependent on the technological
advances it creates, new questions about the use of such technology on a moral plane
arise. Smart city initiatives are far from exempt; handing over governance to automatized
systems may threaten radical, “human” decision-making processes which could answer
the social and environmental challenges of our time. World news outside of the Korean
peninsula has brought to the world’s attention the potentially harmful effects of government
surveillance through the integration of technology into everyday life; Western news and
media sources have been particularly outspoken against the Chinese government’s use of
Artificial Intelligence to track and isolate the Muslim Uighur population in the north-western
region of the country. States such as South Korea who wish to promote the use of smart city
technology must also be aware of the rising scrutiny placed on such technology, especially
its implications for or against our fundamental rights and freedoms.
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REFERENCES
Incheon Free Economic Zone. (2018). Development Outline: Songdo. Retrieved May 02,
2020, from http://www.ifez.go.kr/eng/ivd005
Seoul Metropolitan Goverment. (n.d.). Smart Seoul: Policy Tasks. Retrieved May 02, 2020,
from https://digital.seoul.go.kr/eng/smart-seoul/policy-tasks/smart-welfare
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GIVING EMPTINESS A S(E)OUL:
EXAMINING THE FRAMING OF TECHNOLOGY-FORWARD DEVELOPMENTS
IN SONGDO AND THE DIGITAL MEDIA CITY
By Selina Colin & Antoine Fabre
Introduction
In the past few decades, Seoul’s local governmental authorities have heavily pushed a series
of marketing strategies aimed at branding certain key districts in ways that would attract
private actors to the area. These emerging districts are known as “development clusters”
and boast a heavy integration of technology into day-to-day life as a means of re-positioning
the city as one of a globalized future. On its path towards becoming a “smart city”, Seoul
has built several clusters and new neighborhoods. However, these areas, primarily based
on a “tabula rasa model”, have been faced with a strong need to create specific and, more
importantly, attractive frames in order to appear alluring both for investors and inhabitants.
Thus, clusters have tried to develop, in a more or less successful manner, different strategies
– that range from incentives to storytelling and other sorts of branding processes – in order
to reach these “attractivity” goals. The development of the city of Songdo, found 45 minutes
outside of Seoul proper, and the “Digital Media City” (DMC) are two significant applications
of this targeted marketing, but with differing results. Where the city’s initiatives in Songdo
have encountered difficulties in “humanizing” the area in the face of empty streets and high
vacancy rates, its efforts conversely seem to have succeeded in the DMC. Analyzing the
case of the DMC can be used as a tool to give insight into approaches that can be applied
by local authorities in order to reduce feelings of perceived “soul-less-ness” in a city’s district.
This article aims to outline the importance – throughout Seoul’s recent developmental
processes – of the use of incentives and framing strategies for the re-affirmation of the city’s
identity as well as for the justification of its urbanization methods.
Songdo: A double-edged sword of “artificial framing”
The complexity of Seoul’s identity can be pieced out through the multitude of top-down
initiatives in the theater of the city’s spatial and social transformations. The presence of
several specialized clusters illustrates the quest to find a compromise between projects
deemed economically attractive for investors and those attractive for the citizens
themselves. The former mayor of Seoul, Goh Kun, expressed in this sense that his vision
for the city was “a city that takes its rightful place among the great cities of the world, one
where the environment and the population interact harmoniously” (Barde, 2014). There is
a dichotomy between the development of a global image and an evolution to the benefit
of local communities. It is therefore a question here of studying the impact of this artificial
framing which acts as a double-edged sword. While innovative clusters make it possible to
develop strategies for economic attractiveness and competitiveness, it is also a question
of adding the average citizen, who remains the driving force behind these projects, to the
equation. Despite the OASIS online suggestion system launched in 2006 by the mayor,
allowing citizens to contribute their ideas on city policies and to discuss them directly with
the municipal authorities, it is nonetheless clear that the focus of clusters remains skewed
towards prioritizing the integration of technology into urban life. The marketing of this
integration follows the “flagship store strategy” in the way that different clusters are marketed
as having specialization between them (Genaille, 2007). In any case, it is apparent that the
notion of attractiveness and branding is thus at the heart of the issues.
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Local elected officials and developers are keen to justify and explain the choice to invest in
technologically-inclined communities, especially in the face of public criticism. At a macro
level, such a push for the “smart city” seeks to develop the city in a way that will be attractive
at the international level. Nevertheless, at the micro-level, citizens also need to be considered
in order for a development to be used and thus, considered “a success.” Municipalities have
to take in to consideration the “human” side of development, to go further than the classic
package that a cluster can offer in terms of economic attractiveness; they must break with a
top-down logic in order to really involve citizens in the design of this or that cluster–it is their
right to the city (Lefebvre, 1996). Clusters therefore serve to create favorable spaces in the
metropolis where networks and centrality are created for a given specialization.
Much of the criticism and hesitation surrounding smart cities comes in the relation to the
ethics of the application of technology to every aspect of urban life, especially as it relates
to individual privacy and economic biases. Jake Snow, a Technology and Civil Liberties
Attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, explains that:
“These technologies can cause real harm to people. They have the power to exacerbate
racial or economic inequality, or turn your city into a panopticon in service of a surveillance
state. Like other tools, their effectiveness depends on when, where, and how they are used.
City planners and other officials looking into smart initiatives have a duty to thoroughly
investigate the technologies in question and any costs and risks that might accompany its
use” (Snow, 2018)
Despite such critiques, developments like that of Songdo continue to be followed through,
without any consideration for the will or need of citizens. Despite skyrocketing housing prices
and increasing benefits offered by the South Korean government to incentivize migration
to Songdo, its streets and shopping centers remain depressingly empty of citizenry. If
nothing else, this demonstrates that the core driving force of such cluster is technology
performances, rather than resilience. Following this logic of branding and the search for
permanent innovations, clusters can forget one of the most important points which is the
appropriation of space by citizens to make it a lived-in and livable environment. This is the
risk of development projects that are not spontaneous. In the Songdo cluster, considered
as a cutting-edge showcase for smart city development, the greatest challenge is to run into
one’s neighbors.
Tax incentives and other perks policy are even unable to attract foreign businesses and
workers. Only a smattering of companies, nonprofits, and universities have opened offices
in Songdo, including the Green Climate Fund, IBM, George Mason University and the State
University of New York. The population of the entire city is about 100,000, which represents
only a third of the projected population. For a high-tech city of the future, parts of Songdo
look more like a sparsely populated American suburb of the 1970s - arranged in a grid
pattern with wide avenues for cars, but little space for face-to-face human interaction. The
cluster, in spite of its technological advance, has thus failed to integrate major characteristics
of urbanity such as unpredictability, diversity, openness and authenticity. This project of
smart city represents well the Korean concept of “pali pali” of which means “hurry-hurry”.
The city is very much alive, but it is invisible (Poon, 2018).
The core conflict within cluster is between selling a product (serving economic objectives)
versus creating a distinct identity for residents (serving social objectives). Internal
communications are therefore very important to link the two; the city must be made for
everyone, combining economic development projects while keeping in mind the rights and
needs of its citizens. This can thus be analyzed through the prism of the growth process
of destruction/creation developed by the economist Schumpeter (Spencer & Kirchhoff,
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2006). The attraction can be both complementary to other sites but compete with them.
There is a close relationship between economic means and the socio-cultural content that
must be the effect. To create attraction is to make an investment but which can only be
justified by a return, in this case monetary. It is therefore necessary to arouse the interest
and envy of an external population. In the long term, the brand image is important, but the
transfer of “standard images”, rather than emphasizing the specific character of a project
obeys a more or less uniform and unauthentic model. It is a question of creating and not
copying (Ilmonen, 2007), just as one must not only think in terms of flagship but also take
into account the project in terms of duration and inclusiveness (Genaille, 2007). If this is
not taken into account, clusters can quickly become a form of elitist gated communities,
especially those whose strategy is based on an exclusive economic zone that is accessible
only to the wealthy.
The case of Songdo shows us that a compromise must be found between the economic
and social project that a cluster represents. Beyond mere market logics, moving towards
a search for “added societal value” instead of focusing on the search for greater global
outreach serves common interests. In the following section, we explore how such an
approach, creating bridges between project actors and civil society, would provide the
“humanity” that clusters such as Songdo seem to lack.
The Digital Media City: finding a compromise
Located in the Sangam-dong district (only 7 kilometers away from the city’s Central Business
District), the site of the DMC has–up until recently–been a no man’s land for decades.
Unable to attract development, it was used as a waste landfill until 1997. However, growing
environmental (such as fire hazards and pollution) and economic concerns related to the
area have gradually pushed the metropolitan government to convert this space. Thus,
throughout the 2000s, in the frame of its larger “Millennium City Project”, the metropolitan
government announced its resolute will to establish a secondary city center that would
stand as an eco-friendly international digital-media and entertainment research cluster
(Seoul Business Agency, personal communication, January 2020). In cooperation with the
national government, the municipality started thus funding and planning the large ex-nihilo
project of the DMC. In other words, it embarked on a journey of creating a whole new district
– covering approximately 570,000 square meters – from virtually nothing. The Digital Media
City stands as a case of success regarding the combination of a strong technological and
economic hub with a leisure area conducive to urban wandering. In the case of the DMC,
public space has been taken into account in the development of the cluster as place-making
strategies are adopted. Seoul’s “Digital Media City” (DMC) is a successful embodiment of
the municipality’s efforts to create new types of developments and consequently, innovative
clusters.
What stands out as particularly interesting with this project is the strong entrepreneurial
dimension that the local government undertook to ensure the DMC’s success and generate
revenue. It showcases how much public actors can value the private sector, as well as how
the need to achieve certain objectives (such as fostering attractivity and competitiveness)
can – as entrepreneurial behaviors are actively adopted and risks increasingly endorsed
– transform the nature of local governmental actors. Indeed, even before the start of the
project’s implementation in 2006, the municipality had put into place several marketoriented strategies aimed at luring stakeholders, both public and private, to the area; of
particular interest were powerful investors, developers, and tenants who could, through the
influence of their own brand, function as “magnets” for other firms and organizations of the
same tenure.
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More precisely, in order to entice the settlement of private actors, the municipality established
a myriad of measures aiming at accommodating and supporting the latter. For instance, to
increase the site’s accessibility, it has ensured the provision of high-quality infrastructure
– for both the telecommunications networks and transit network. Additionally, the local
government has also ensured the provision of high-quality services in terms of work and
housing, education, leisure, and health (Seoul Business Agency, personal communication,
January 2020). Regarding leisure, the district proposes large green spaces (including the
ecological regenerated landfill park, the size of New York’s Central Park, built on the riverside
region), entertainment venues (a new stadium designed to host festivals such as the DMC
Festival of sports events such as the World Cup), as well as lively streets with numerous
cafés and restaurants (Seoul Business Agency, 2020). The district is also envisioning new
plans for a mall, a hospital and research & development industry spaces. All of this was/
is being done with the aim of rendering the space a true “living community” marked by
places of communication and interaction: “will not just be a scientific base but also a living
community where its potential for both work and leisure can be fully realized” (Digital Media
City, n.d.). Lastly, but very importantly, in order to attract the implementation of private actors,
the municipality has made a strong usage of financial incentives (Seoul Business Agency,
2020). It has thus offered businesses considerable tax exemptions as well as low bidding
price levels for land sales. Throughout these strategies, the DMC’s development policies
have brought together the best national and international, scientific and artistic talents to
become a major driver of Seoul’s economic growth by blending technology, economy,
culture, heritage and environmental project.
Looking at the DMC in the present day, the aforementioned use of different tools and
measures by local authorities have overall been fruitful in attracting influential private actors
as well as in achieving the branding and competition goals that were set. Firstly, property
values have largely increased. Secondly, around 575 firms have established themselves in
the area since its very recent creation and around 40,500 people are currently employed
in the DMC. Among these firms, both global (10% being foreign) and local firms are
represented, including LG Telecom, Pantech or LG CNS (Seoul Business Agency, 2020).
Some of them have even set their headquarters in the DMC, an initiative which has largely
benefited the DMC’s economy. It has especially been the case for Korean broadcasting firms
who started to settle in the area since 2012, eventually transforming the area into a center
of filming and broadcasting. Thus, the DMC truly achieved its branding goals of standing
as a high-tech complex for digital technology and media industries (broadcasting, filming,
gaming, music, e-learning etc.) which can also simultaneously function as a testing site for
future technology, such as that of a 5G network. This achievement has ultimately allowed
the district to gain considerable prestige as the latter is now perceived both as innovative
as well as an auspicious ground for venture markets. All of the aforementioned elements
point out that in the DMC’s case, public investment preceded private investment and that
strong activity relocation processes (of companies already present in the capital - already
built ecosystem) have marked the project. The coherence of the project was maintained as
it progressed with the aim of exposing an innovative technology cluster. The City of Seoul,
rather than looking for an easy real estate profit through the immediate sale of the land,
strictly selected organizations and companies corresponding to the dynamism of the DMC.
In addition, the Seoul Metropolitan Government provided key facilities such as the research
center to foster collaborations.
Nowadays, the DMC’s major objective is to enhance the power of its brand through the lens
of globalization. More precisely, Seoul’s Digital Media City has a few key goals that it lays out
quite strongly on its website. First, it aims to become a major tech hub:
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“equipped with the world’s top digital media capabilities, it will be the world’s first planned
media and entertainment IT cluster…the DMC is designed to be a hi-tech city of information
that will become an international Mecca of all things from the media world” (Digital Media
City, n.d.)
Second, it highlights a recognition of and design for issues of urban ecology in development:
“it will be the first place in the world where state-of-the art digital technologies coexist with
the natural environment”, “an eco-friendly city that will brighten the future of Seoul” (Digital
Media City, n.d.). Third, the DMC seeks to stand as an international research and knowledge
hub: “once established as the world’s best knowledge-based center through academy
e-industry-research collaboration, …residents will have enhanced access to contents and
services from the many universities, research centers, and companies and their products
in Seoul” (Digital Media City, n.d.). Fourth, the DMC seeks to endorse and support Korean
history, culture and, economy, in order to bring prosperity to the whole country and act as a
“centerpiece of contents production reflecting the history, culture, and economy of Korea…
creating the most sophisticated business community in the world, one that will not just
bolster the economy but propel culture and environment…[the] DMC will be a catalyst of
‘glocalization’ to satisfy the two complementary demands of globalization and localization of
culture” (Digital Media City, n.d.).
By using such superlative and ambitious discourse, the local government pushes even further
its branding and framing process. And one of the strategies through which it promotes it
is emphasizing the site’s interconnectivity potential: “make Digital Media City an inroad into
East Asia and beyond” (Digital Media City, n.d.). Indeed, throughout its official discourses,
local authorities push forward how greatly the DMC is interconnected with the region and
world, as well as how much development potential that can foster for the coming future of
urban development.
Conclusion
This article has looked at the ways in which the framing of new urban developments in South
Korea that emphasize an integration of technology into daily governance can work either
for or against the perceived success of said development. Both the cases of the Songdo
Smart City and the Digital Media City demonstrate a desire on the municipal and state
government’s part to capitalize on available land as part of a greater campaign to insert
Seoul into a globalized economy driven by technological innovation.
There are however, several points that go unaddressed in this analysis for reasons of scope
of analysis. First, the issue of physical location of each development within the geography
of the city go unexplored. An initial analysis would claim that the DMC’s placement within
the boundaries of the city of Seoul as opposed to 45 minutes outside of the city (as is the
case for Songdo) make it more attractive to potential tenants, as it places them closer to the
network of resources available in a dense metropolis. However, without further exploration,
this point cannot be confirmed. Second, this article hinges on the idea that a certain
sense of “warmth” or welcoming surroundings associated with a place having a “soul” is a
prerequisite for its success as a new urban development. Further analysis would look into
the origins of this idea, and how our Western viewpoint on the matter plays into notions of
the social effect of a space. Thirdly, and related to the second point, analyzing the cases of
Songdo and the DMC call into question how success is measured in an urban development,
and who measures it. How does a municipal government measure the success of a project
in comparison to the developer who built it? A resident of the area in question?
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Nonetheless, the key takeaway from this article is that in these two cases, finding a
compromise between economic goals and creating a sense of identity within the development
in question is a key part in why the DMC was so popular, while Songdo remains used at
below-capacity levels. While it may be too early in the timeline of smart-city development
globally to make any definitive statements about whether livability is necessary factor for
necessary success, it may be nonetheless important for municipal governments and project
developers to consider the implications of giving a development a sense of social coherence
and “soulfulness” as a means of generating interest in the public.
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REFERENCES
Barde, C. P. (2014). Séoul, la cité de tous les défis. Outre-Terre, (2), 124-156.
Digital Media City (n.d.). http://seouldmc.kr/index.do. Last accessed April 2020
Kim, D. (2017, February 10). Seoul's Digital Media City (DMC). Retrieved April 2020, from
https://www.seoulsolution.kr/en/content/seoul%E2%80%99s-digital-media-city-dmc
Lefebvre, H. (1996). The right to the city. Writings on cities, 63181.
Genaille, N. (2007). Le concept de flagship, un projet d’image en direction de l’attractivité.
L’attractivité des territoires: regards croisés, Actes de séminaires, 111-116.
Ilmonen, M. (2007). Branding a City–Selling a Product or Creating an Identity? Branding
city–vendre un produit ou créer une identité?. L'attractivité des territoires: regards croisé.,
Actes des séminaires, 33-36.
Poon, L. (2018). Sleepy in Songdo, Korea’s smartest city. CityLab. Atlantic Monthly Group.
Retrieved from https://www. citylab. com/life/2018/06/sleepy-in-songdo-koreas-smartestcity/561374.
Snow, J. (2018, May 11). Smart Cities: Ethical Dilemmas Created by New Technologies.
Lecture presented in Santa Clara University, Santa Clara.
Spencer, A. S., & Kirchhoff, B. A. (2006). Schumpeter and new technology based firms:
Towards a framework for how NTBFs cause creative destruction. International
Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 2(2), 145-156.
Urban Sustainability Exchange. (n.d.). Sangam Digital Media City (DMC) - City of
Tomorrow. Retrieved April, 2020, from https://use.metropolis.org/case-studies/sangamdigital-media-city-dmc-city-of-tomorrow
Visit to the Seoul Business Agency located in the DMC. January 2020.
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KNOWING, SHOWING, GROWING
SEOUL IN THE GLOBAL MARKET FOR KNOW-HOWS
By Augustin Bauchot & Violette Caubet
Introduction
A key sector of Korean growth models is that of knowledge and policy exportation. Through
the global market for know-hows, a term used to describe the worldwide financialized
exchanges of policy and technological knowledge, South Korea and its metropolises have
gained worldwide recognition and new financial inputs. Public agencies such as the Korean
Land and Housing Corporation (LH) have played a key role in this development–having
gone as far as to create an entire branch dedicated to global consulting–and reached new
markets throughout the world, including Vietnam, Colombia, and Tanzania, to name a few.
To grasp the full picture of the insertion of Korea and Seoul into this worldwide market,
however, one must understand the long history of policy and technology transfers towards
South Korea and more specifically, Seoul; in particular, the strategy of “innovation shopping”
(a term used by LH) has been particularly successful as a development path for importing
specific tools from countries such as the US or Japan. Within the framework of policy
transfer, a theory described by Paul Cairney as “the transfer of policy solutions or ideas from
one place to another, such as by one government importing the policy in another country”
(Cairney, 2011), this article will examine the dual movement of knowledge, analyze the role
of both national and local actors in it, and aim to insert this dual phenomenon in a context
of the financialization of knowledge.
Policy and technology transfer in the development of South Korea, past and present
South Korea’s growth model relies on the acquisition of technology for rapid industrial
development. Under the developmental state of the post-war, internal factors such as
economic incentives, government intervention in licenses purchase, or export promotion
policies explain South Korea’s knowledge acquisition and economic growth. However, South
Korea also relied heavily on external factors, especially technology transfers from both Japan
and the U.S.A. Until the mid-1980s, South Korea strongly encouraged foreign transnational
corporations to invest in high valued-added industries while enforcing policies against
foreign direct investment (FDI) such as ownership restriction by or export requirement to a
third-party. Since the creation of a National Research and Development Program in 1982,
the attitude has changed because of the need to recycle trade surplus, which has led the
government to loosen restrictions on both foreign licenses and FDI (Joo, 2019). Simulation
models developed by Fry (1997) report that FDI was responsible for 2.6% of growth in South
Korea between 1983 and 1992. South Korea also imported technology through licensing:
between 1964 and 1995, 48.1% of technology licensing agreements were from Japanese
firms, while 28% came from American firms.
Importing technologies from the U.S. and Japan during the developmental state of South
Korea was an important external factor of economic growth. We can now observe a duality
in South Korea’s path to development in that the role has been reversed with Seoul now
exporting technology and knowledge to other fast-growing countries. Examples of this include
the exportation of the public transportation system from Seoul to other cities worldwide such
as Bogotá, Bangkok, and Ulaanbaatar in Columbia, Thailand, and Mongolia, respectively.
Bogotá, the Colombian capital, is now equipped with the same public transportation system
as Seoul due to a collaboration within the Knowledge Sharing Program (KSP) which led to
the adoption of Korea’s Intelligent Transport System (ITS). KSP provided consulting and
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recommendations for transport infrastructures projects and financing for the city of Bogotá,
which is now known for having a very effective system to move its multi-million resident
population.
National and metropolitan strategies of know-how exportation
“Korea still has the memory of being a poor country and has the benefit of a wealthy country
right now and that’s an experience that I think Korea can share with its partner countries in
Africa and in Asia, and should share.” (KSP, 2018). In this statement, American economist
Jeffrey Sachs depicts a narrative which has gained importance over the last decades: that
of a country moving from a “dominated” to a “dominant” position in the global hierarchy,
from a “developing” to an “industrialized” economy. This move gives South Korea more
responsibility but also more opportunities to capitalize on its knowledge production and
exportation.
The creation of the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in 1991 marked a turn
in the Korean approach to know-how sharing. The country moved up the global hierarchy
as described in previous chapters, but also took a role in helping others to develop. This
could be done through loans or grants, but also took the form of knowledge exportation
from 2004 onwards, with the creation of the Knowledge Sharing Program (KSP) by the
Korean Ministry of Economy and Finance (MOEF). Far from a “free” sharing program, it
was, in reality, the institutionalization of policy consultation, project modularization, and
joint consulting programs with international institutions such as the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (Kim & Tcha, 2012). With this program, the central government
created a framework to sell knowledge around the globe. The aim was to generate economic
rent linked to the “Korean-style” city knowledge, but also to favor the implantation of Korean
firms abroad, which has since benefitted the chaebols, who have gained markets worldwide
as the international cooperation projects multiplied (Joo, 2019).
On its part, the Seoul Metropolitan Authority gained major interest in the knowledge market
with the arrival of mayor Park in 2011. “Exporting Seoul abroad” became a growth opportunity
for the metropolis (Joo, 2019). Using its image as an “economic miracle”, Seoul branded
its policies for exportation to developing metropolises around the world, and by 2016,
the SMG had signed agreements with 35 cities in 25 countries to share 42 of its policies
(Joo, 2019). Seoul’s policy export strategy was implemented through the creation of the
Seoul Urban Solutions Agency (SUSA) in 2015, an agency which aims to “[transfer] Seoul’s
urban development knowledge, experience and know-how to provide urban solutions to
challenges that cities face” and “[facilitate] public and private cooperation for provision of
urban solutions” (SUSA, 2017). This short presentation leads to two main observations: the
metropolitan authority has used a public agency to lead policy exportation and marketing,
inserting it on a global competitive market; and the overall objectives of Seoul’s strategy
might join that of the national government in promoting private Korean companies abroad.
Indeed, in her book Megacity Seoul, Yu-Min Joo states that the underlying motivation of
mayor Park may be “to support local businesses in finding new opportunities and markets
overseas as SMG exports its policies” (Joo, 2019).
South Korean in the global market for know-hows: the financialization of knowledge
The insertion of Korean knowledge sharing into the global market has been made through
national and metropolitan public policies. However, one type of actor illustrates and bears
at its core the marketization of know-hows: metropolitan public corporations (like SUSA)
and national ones as well. Walking into the LH administrative building in Gangnam-gu,
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one is welcomed by the numerous images of country or regional delegations who have
come to learn about the “Korean best practice”, or to negotiate contracts for global
consulting from the public company. The website of the corporation similarly advertises its
“knowledge sharing programs” (not to be confused with the national KSP), which appear to
be intensive training programs for public officials in situ, along with “international projects”
which encompass a wide variety of services, from Master Plan delivery to service contract
management or construction of industrial zones, used in countries such as Myanmar, Kuwaït
or Bolivia (LH, 2019). In the meantime, more than 9,000 employees, both in a Korean and
international workforce (the latter of which is distributed into 50 subdivisions), are working for
the corporation’s national and international objectives around the world.
Reinforcement of Korean public agencies and private actors in the global market for knowhows have also led the way for counterforces to develop through free sharing data and
technologies movements. The Seoul Metropolitan City has developed an open database
platform which is primarily used for making geo-location-based services, to make
information visually available through the use of GIS software or similar data visualization
platforms. The open source data movement relies on participatory services which aim
to drive civic engagement, with approximately 10% of smart city services involving the
processing of data collected through user’s inputs (J.H. Lee and al., 2014). Another example
of this push for open data and micro-level knowledge sharing is the TIDE Institute-financed
Fab Lab Seoul, which is a citizen participative campus for individuals wanting to use and
exchange tools, information and knowledge regarding open source hardware and develop
technology related projects. Fab Lab Seoul is part of an international movement of Fab City
cooperation: a network of 28 cities exchanging both data and projects for the cities. The
Fab City movement is based on an alternative sharing technology goal that is to promote
a city where citizens become manufacturers of their own needs, reclaiming technologies
collaboratively and contributing to a control of materials, energy and knowledge. Those
open source and sharing programs designed as free circulation of know-hows among
citizens and urban space, but also among cities around the world, might challenge the
historical commercialization of technologies flows operated by South Korea.
Conclusion
Seoul’s insertion into the global market for know-hows is not a new development. The
metropolis has long used policies from both developed and developing countries
metropolises in order to grow economically and to gain importance at the global scale. In
the 1990s, however, national and local governments started turning towards knowledge
and policy exportation as a way not only to generate public revenue, but to also favor the
development of private companies abroad. This has been done through the establishment
or reinforcement of public agencies and corporations, who have taken the role of figureheads
for knowledge and policy exportation, blurring partly the line between Korean public and
private actors in their chase for global markets. However, the “marketization of knowledge”
cannot be generalized without mentioning some counterforces: the Fab City movement
links Seoul with other large metropolis around the globe and promotes free sharing of data
and technology. The two trends, marketization and free circulation of knowledge, might
generate important conflicts in the years to come if the Open Data initiatives and Fab City
movement take deeper roots in the Korean metropolis.
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REFERENCES
Joo, Yu-Min, (2018), “Megacity Seoul: Urbanization and the Development of Modern South
Korea”, Routledge.
Kim, Y. and Tcha, M.J. (2012). “Introduction to the Knowledge Sharing Program of Korea”.
Korea Compass, Korean Economic Institute.
Korea Land and Housing Corporation. (2019). International Projects. lh.or.kr.
KSP (2018), “What is KSP?”. ksp.go.kr. http://www.ksp.go.kr/english/pageView/ksp-is
LH (2019), “International Projects”. lh.or.kr. https://www.lh.or.kr/eng/contents/cont.do
Shin, K., & Timberlake, M. (2006). “Korea’s Global City: Structural and Political mplications
of Seoul’s Ascendance in the Global Urban Hierarchy. International Journal of Comparative
Sociology”, 47(2), 145–173. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020715206065384
Shwayri, ST 2013, “A model Korean ubiquitous eco-city? The politics of making Songdo”,
Journal of Urban Technology, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 39–55.
SUSA. (2017). “Our Mission and Vision”, susa.or.kr. http://susa.or.kr/en/content/ourmission-and-vision
Towards a K-SMART City
© Photo: Strolling around ”The city of the future”. Songdo 2020. Alexandra van Milink.
117
2020 AND BEYOND
C ONCLUDING TH OUG HT S
118
2020 AND BEYOND : CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
By Shirene Shomloo and Pauline Le Bozec
In hindsight, our study trip came at an extremely particular time in world history. Our departing
flight was on January 19th, the day before the first case was announced in the country, and
though we knew that the virus was spreading rapidly through neighboring countries (notably,
China), we did not at the time realize how quickly the state of the world was about to change
(Seo, 2020). Thus, this report represents a body of work that may quickly be read as outdated
or un-encompassing enough of the wide range considerations and outcomes that have come
out of the global and local events that have come out of 2020.
Nevertheless, our field work was marked by this narrative thread of a Seoul emerging from its
past and barreling down into its future. This report, it should be noted, provided us a distinct
opportunity to witness and contribute to a larger international conversation on mechanisms
and processes of governance in Seoul. Each of our visits could be placed on this chronology,
held onto the same thematic undercurrents. The report can very roughly be divided along these
lines as well. Part 1 takes a historical viewpoint in contextualizing the Seoul of today, looking at
events at a variety of scales such as the country’s colonial relationship with neighboring Japan,
or the city of Seoul’s relationship with the broader national government in relation to the 1988
Olympic Games. Parts 2 and 3 bring into focus contemporary issues of governance of the
city. The former looks at issues of governance and how tensions and collaborations between
the city and the state serve as a useful jumping off point to better understanding how the city
functions and further drives its own growth. The latter focuses on this development itself:
how the built environment of Seoul has and continues to function as a fundamental vehicle
for growth in the city. Finally, part 4 of this report looks to Seoul’s future by way of the use and
integration of technology in “selling the city” to a broader, global audience driven by its image
as a “city of the future.”
In the face of our field study and the subsequent ensemble of the articles compiled in this
report, what is ultimately fundamentally clear is that the city of Seoul is sitting at a developmental
crossroads and despite placing massive amounts of capital and energy into its branding as
a city of the future, it remains haunted by the realities of its past in its present. This is even
clear in the physical form of the urban landscape; Seoul is a city where the physical forms of
neighborhoods can change vastly from one corner to the next. Perhaps few things literally
illustrate this better than the view we got at the top of the Sewoon Arcade on the first day of
our trip: to our left lay the Changdeokgung Palace, Jongmyo Shrine, and their respectives
grounds and gardens–symbols of the country’s expansive heritage–while at our foreground
lay the shorter, crowded-together, and often dilapidated buildings of a 20th century Korea
entrenched in it colonial history and attempt to break free from it, and finally out in the distance
are the high rises of a modern, technologically advanced city of the future.
In the face of disaster: the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea
Without a doubt, the most significant development since the writing of the articles of this
report has been the COVID-19 crisis. South Korea, along with many of its neighbors, has been
praised for its aggressive and effective response to the Coronavirus outbreak, particularly by
news sources from the United States and Europe, which have both had a much more difficult
time in containing the virus’s outbreak (Fisher & Sang-Hun, 2020; Yan & Babe, 2020; Yoon &
Martin, 2020). Once it was clear that the virus had taken hold on the Korean peninsula, the
Concluding thoughts
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Photograph 1: View from the top of the Sewoon Arcade in Seoul.
Source: Photo by Shirene Shomloo, 2020.
South Korean government adopted a method of prevention against the virus which differed
from European techniques; South Korean began aggressively imposing mass testing, selfisolation, and contact tracing, following a protocol known as “test, trace, contain”. A selfquarantine for travellers into the country was also advised and enforced. Notably, no general
lockdown was imposed as was seen in other countries around the country such as India,
France, and the UK.
The strategy of mass testing is largely considered the explanation for South Korea’s successful
management of the crisis. East Asian countries are well-versed in the management of
epidemics: in 2015, a patient in South Korean came down with MERS (Middle East Respiratory
Syndrome-related Coronavirus), which because of its high infection rate, infected 186 and
killed 36 people. The “test, trace and contain” technique on 17,000 people helped contain
the outbreak over a period of 2 months; part of the reason this was carried out so effectively
is due to the Korean government’s use of jurisprudence, which allowed authorities to have
access to mobile and credit card data in order to trace cases. Such direct and centralized
action proved once again to be highly successful in face of COVID-19, which saw a peak of
around 8,000 active infections at the pandemic’s peak in the spring in comparison to countries
such as France and the United States, which are currently peaking at well over 1 million and
3 million active cases respectively at the time this conclusion was written in November 2020
(South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare, Coronavirus, 2020; CDC, 2020; Santé Publique
France, 2020).
Nevertheless, the South Korean citizens’ reaction to the governments’ reaction to the crisis
was deeply divided, especially in regards to the ethical questions that arose out of such
aggressive containment tactics. On the one hand, the situation allowed the continuation of
a rather normal everyday life while much of the rest of the world spiraled into a string of
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lockdowns and economic stress. On the other hand, several concerns emerged in the public
debate. First and foremost was the lack of privacy: the South Korean national government very
openly used citizens’ private data to inform their own decisions as well as public decisions.
Authorities went so far as to share location and activity history of those testing positive, with
information such as with the use of private data and the identity of those testing positive made
known to the larger public, such as “when people left for work, whether they wore masks in
the subway, the name of the stations where they changed trains, the massage parlors and
karaoke bars they frequented and the names of the clinics where they were tested for the
virus” (Singer & Sang-Hun, 2020). This heavily raised the question of the implication of the
government in the citizens’ individual freedom; even in a society as highly surveilled as South
Korea, these measures are perceived as extreme because of the extent of sharing of the
information.
Moreover, as it was the case in many other countries–such as the United States and
France–with the rise in awareness of police violence, enforcement of pandemic measures
disproportionately targeted minorities and under-represented groups. In South Korea, the
LGBTQ+ community in particular was targeted in May, when an outbreak of cases was
traced back to the Itaewon district of Seoul, known for its higher number of gay bars and
clubs, resulting in online and media harassment towards the already-ostracized community.
Furthermore, though the physical measures taken were less extreme than in other countries,
an official survey showed that 40% of the Seoulites found that their mental health was affected
by the health measures of the government. Though most of the respondents found the social
distancing and test, trace, isolate protocole necessary, they also found it troubling (Sajid, n.d.).
The politics of President Moon have also been highly criticized by conservatives throughout
the country, and caused a protest mid-August, which led to a new cluster and a significant
number of new cases at the end of the summer. Despite a perceived return towards “normalcy”
in the summer, a new wave of cases started back up in September, with the death count
remaining relatively low.
The Korean state at a crossroads: Changes in the political regime
Yet despite the controversy surrounding the specifics of the methods of coronavirus mitigation,
public opinion has held President Moon Jae-in in a net positive light. In part due to this very
aggressive and effective response to the pandemic, and despite the active nature of the virus
at the time, South Koreans elected President Moon Jae-in’s party to the national assembly
in an election that saw an all-time high in voter participation. This flip in the political leaning of
the national assembly was largely seen as the public’s endorsement of the president’s politics;
before the COVID crisis, the president’s approval ratings had dropped to around 30% for a
variety of reasons, including a lack of job creation and scandals in his cabinet (McCurry, 2020).
The election results also mark the largest majority in power since the country’s transition to
democracy in the 1980s.
Though it may be too soon to fully see the consequences of this transfer of power, in just
a few months we have already seen a significant shift in the direction of Korean legislation.
Take for example Soyoung Lee, South Korea’s youngest parliament member, who has been
at the forefront of the campaign for a Korean green new deal which would drastically reduce
Korean use of fossil fuels. This political shift may prove to change the entire course of Korean
urban development as described in the articles in this report. This South Korean green new
deal, unveiled in full in October, and backed by President Moon Jae-in, includes a number of
policies and initiatives in the urban development sector to promote “balanced development”
with the aim of promoting both economic growth while also addressing ecological concerns
Concluding thoughts
121
raised by climate activists (Sajid, n.d.; Choi, 2020) . Notably, it acknowledges the very power
that Seoul and other large cities of the country have in advancing and representing the national
vision of the future; it very explicitly targets urban development as one of its axes of reform so
as to emphasize a need for ecologically-minded development while maintaining the economic
growth of the country (Choi, 2020).
1
As climate change becomes a more prominent part of the political schema pushed forward
by the younger political generation, it may very well be that we will see a very different type of
development in South Korea in the coming years: one that shifts away from purely economic
interests favored by the right-wing and centrist politicians and places emphasis on ecological
consciousness as well. In any case, one cannot help but heavily question the future of the
dominance of the “smart-city” narrative that the Seoul Metropolitan Government (and more
broadly, the national government) was seen to be pushing in part 4 of this report. If public
opinion remains in favor of the current (which it very well may, given current numbers), it is
likely that we will see a not insignificant shift in priorities of Seoul’s urban development (Yonhap,
2020).
Where do we go from here?
Seoul is a city that has invested massive amounts of time, effort, and capital into propelling
itself out of its own history and into a globalized, technologically-savvy future. We have seen
throughout the articles in this report the varying success the city and state governments have
had in doing so, and even since the writing of the articles it has become abundantly clear how
much the trajectory of a city can change in such a short period, if the mitigating circumstances
are extreme enough. Our visit began and ended as the city was on the precipice of disaster,
so in many ways, this report functions as an analysis of the “before times”, in what future
historians may refer to as the “Pre-COVID-19 Era”. It is certainly too soon to know the full
extent of the changes in urban governance that the Coronavirus will have, but with the extreme
changes in political power we have seen at the state level, it is likely that they will be significant.
To mind comes the wide and empty boulevards of the Incheon Free Economic Zone in Songdo
and the expansive network of surveillance and tracking technologies that worked to keep the
development running smoothly. At the time of our visit, we were struck by stark contrast it
provided to the European cities we are familiar with, characterized by and lauded for their
narrow and crowded streets and a sense of “life” and human connection–a concept that Fabre
and Colin notably bring up in their article in Part 4. However, would such wide boulevards
devoid of human beings seem attractive now to a Western eye, in a time when close human
contact is generally seen as a threat rather than a plus? Patterns of development are sure to
change, but it is unclear whether collaboration in the face of global issues will be prioritized or
rather if countries will start favoring personal space and isolation.
Our analysis has demonstrated the ways in which Seoul has only recently made the shift
towards recognizing the importance of bottom-up, citizen-driven governance tactics; one
can’t help but wonder how these will evolve in the theoretical “Post-COVID-19” world that,
at the time that this report is being compiled, feels all too far away. We await the results with
anticipation, but until then, it is clear that Seoul is headed to a future heavily by an increasingly
globalized point of view, but whether that is for better or for worse is yet to be seen.
South Korea has been criticized for its heavy reliance on fossil fuels to support its rapid growth, being
named one of the world’s “biggest carbon villains” in 2016. (Watts, 2020)
1
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REFERENCES
CDC. (2020, March 28). COVID-19 Cases, Deaths, and Trends in the US | CDC COVID
Data Tracker. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://covid.cdc.gov/coviddata-tracker
Choi, H. (2020, October 13). Korean New Deal to focus on local-level projects. http://www.
koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20201013000881
Fisher, M., & Sang-Hun, C. (2020, March 23). How South Korea Flattened the Curve. The
New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/world/asia/coronavirus-southkorea-flatten-curve.html
McCurry, J. (2020, April 16). South Korea’s ruling party wins election landslide amid
coronavirus outbreak. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/16/
south-koreas-ruling-party-wins-election-landslide-amid-coronavirus-outbreak
Sajid, I. (n.d.). 40% S.Koreans face mental health issues due to COVID-19. Retrieved
November 7, 2020, from https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/40-skoreans-face-mentalhealth-issues-due-to-covid-19/1990320
Santé Publique France. (2020). Suivi de l’épidémie de COVID-19 en France. Etalab-Covid19Dashboard. Retrieved November 14, 2020, from https://dashboard.covid19.data.gouv.fr
Seo, J.-W. (2020, January 24). 신종 코로나바이러스 한국인 첫환자 확인. 매일경제. https://
www.mk.co.kr/news/society/view/2020/01/80017/
Singer, N., & Sang-Hun, C. (2020, April 17). As Coronavirus Surveillance Escalates,
Personal Privacy Plummets. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/
technology/coronavirus-surveillance-tracking-privacy.html
South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare, Coronavirus. (2020). Coronavirus Disease-19
(COVID-19). Coronavirus Disease-19(COVID-19). Retrieved November 14, 2020, from
http://ncov.mohw.go.kr/en/
Watts, J. (2020, May 23). Could a green new deal turn South Korea from climate villain to
model? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/23/could-a-greennew-deal-turn-south-korea-from-climate-villain-to-model
Yan, W., & Babe, A. (2020, October 5). What Should the U.S. Learn from South Korea’s
Covid-19 Success? Undark Magazine. https://undark.org/2020/10/05/south-korea-covid19-success/
Yonhap. (2020, October 7). Over 4 in 10 Koreans want ruling party to win 2022
presidential race: Poll. The Korea Herald. http://www.koreaherald.com/view.
php?ud=20201007000246&np=2&mp=1
Yoon, D., & Martin, T. W. (2020, September 25). How South Korea Successfully Managed
Coronavirus. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/lessons-from-south-koreaon-how-to-manage-covid-11601044329
Concluding thoughts
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2020 and Beyond
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not have been possible without the indispensable support and kindness
of many individuals. First and foremost, we would like to thank members of the Urban
School’s pedagogical team, Cristina Reyes-Garcia, Kate Kwak, Pauline Emile-Geay and
Sandrine Boisard for tirelessly organizing and overseeing the study trip itself; the Scientific
Director, Tommaso Vitale for assuring conferences, preparing readings on different policy
sectors as well as on Seoul’s history and context, and providing guidance in the preparation,
writing, and editing of this report; the Dean of the Urban School, Patrick Le Galès for his
knowledge and helping to equip us with the theoretical framework for this trip since day
1; and finally, the Executive Director, Guillermo Martin for its continuous presence and
dialogue all along the collective enquiry. We would also like to thank the myriad of people
who opened their schedules and doors to us in Seoul, for giving us their time and attention
in our study of the city and its complex structures and processes of governance. Those
people include:
Dosi Gong Gam Cooperative Association Architecture Office
Mr. Lee Junhyung
Fab-lab Seoul
Ms. Gu Hyebin
Global Green Growth Institute
Ms. Maeng Jiae
Mr. Storey Donovan
IFEZ Smart city operation center
Mr. Lee Sangho (Ryan)
Mr. Kim Sunghwan
Korea Land and Housing Corportation (LH)
Mr. Kim Jung Ik
Mr. Lee Seunghwan
SBA (Seoul Business Agency)
Ms. Go Sumin
Ms. Go Suhyun
Seochogu Office - Urban Design Division - Public Design Team
Ms. Kim Sun joo
Seoul City : Urban regeneration bureau
Mr. Gil Hyun Ki
Mr. Kang Maenghun
Ms. Lee Jooyon
Mr. Baek Wunseok
Mr. Kim Jungbeom
Seoul City : Seoul Innovation Bureau
Mr. Choi Jeonghun
125
Ms. Park Soonhui
Seoul Digital Foundation
Ms. Kang YoonGyeong
Seoul Foundation of Arts and culture
Ms. Lee Jieun
Mr. Kim Yeongho
Seoul Housing & Communities Corporation (SH)
Mr. Kim Daecheon
Mr. Cheon Seong hee
Seoul Museum of History
Ms. Lee Jaekyung
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127
VISITS MAP
Source : http://kosis.kr/eng/ https://gadm.org/ http://download.geofabrik.de/ https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/3/648/htm
Map 1: Map of our visits during our trip
Author: Daphnée Govers, 2020.
Legend:
Seoul
Incheon
Visits
1 - Seoul History Museum
2 - Seoul City Hall
3 - Seun Sangga Arcade
4 - Global Green Growth Institute
5 - Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture
6 - Songdo G-Tower
7 - Seoul Business Agency
8 - Seoul Innovation Fab Lab
9 - Buldwang
10 - Hanuel Park
11 - DMC Center
12 - Guui Arisu Water Facility
13 - Yancheon RPF
14 - ICLEI East Asia Office
15 - TBC Seoul Institute
16 - Seocho-gu Office
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MASTER PROGRAMME GOVERNING THE LARGE METROPOLIS
The Master programme Governing the Large Metropolis (GLM) develops a comparative
approach to metropolitan governance, and it prepares for vibrant job-markets in the field of
Utilities & Infrastructure, Governance & Planning, Urban Policies, Smart and Digital Cities.
A unique integration between academic research and professional expertise
Three semesters of classes (528 h)
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Interdisciplinary knowledge
- Fundamental classes: Public Policy Analysis, Urban Sociology, Geography,
Comparative Urban Law, Urban and Regional Economics, Urban Planning,
Governance Studies, Sustainable Urbanisation
- Advanced classes across a wide array of world Regions & Policy Sectors
(Culture, Housing, Mobility…)
Qualitative, Quantitative and GIS Methodological Courses
1-week study-trip for a collective enquiry in a large metropolis, followed by a
students’ publication
Teamwork by 4 or 5 students to complete a capstone project with public or private
partners
Professional workshops with top-level executives
4th semester: Professional Internship or Research Fieldwork or Business Incubator
Teaching and coaching is delivered by university academics, urban experts and practitioners
in various urban sectors coming from all over the world.
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The programme is delivered entirely in English with a great emphasis on issues of
comparison. No ready made recipes are provided, and no simple fairy tales on the so called
«best practices of good governance»: GLM trains students with a strong critical approach
and management skills of the highest standard so as to be competent to work in arduous
and wearying metropolitan settings.
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26 researchers, 14 executives & heads of department actively involved in teaching
10 managers & professionals to coach students’ teamwork (capstone projects)
Around 50 students every year, coming from all regions of the world
A dedicated team
1 scientific director
1 academic advisor
1 academic assistant
A wide array of job positions after graduating
• Research and Urban Policy Analyst
• Digital Program Manager
• Programme Management Officer
• Head of the Resilience Office
• Business Developer for Urban Utilities
• Urban infrastructure project manager
• Metropolitan Technical Cooperation Project Manager
• Smart City Consultant
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© Photo: Seung Arcade and Sangga. Seoul 2020. Alexandra van Milink.